A desperate game, just the second goalless draw of the season, but there was a sense that both Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Frank Lampard would be relatively satisfied, may even feel they had made a point. Manchester United had let in 12 goals in its first five league games and Chelsea nine, and those statistics, more than anything else, governed a desperately unambitious affair at Old Trafford. Chelsea’s last visit in the league, on the opening day of last season, had ended in a 4–0 defeat. There was never any prospect of a repeat.
After the wildness of much of the first month of the season, this felt like a throwback to how games between the major powers used to be.