THE TIMES
By Oliver Kay
Eighteen months ago, the Tottenham board considered hiring Queiroz as their new coach, only to learn that, after an ill-fated season in charge of Real Madrid, he was already set on rejoining United. They ended up, briefly, with Jacques Santini before settling on Martin Jol, who, with a symmetry more readily associated with love triangles in the Primrose Hill celebrity set, had previously been considered for the job as Ferguson’s assistant.
Queiroz is nobody’s fool, but it would appear that the Londoners got the better deal. As United have stagnated under Ferguson and Queiroz, Tottenham have been rejuvenated. "A massive outlay in the transfer market has helped," as Ferguson wrote on Saturday, but it helps, too, to identify the right kind of young players — Dawsons, Lennons, Carricks and Huddlestones, rather than Djemba- Djembas, Klébersons, Millers and Bellions — as well as an old head, Edgar Davids, whose tenacity would not have gone amiss in the United midfield.
For 45 minutes, forcing a high tempo and pressing high up the pitch, United set about Tottenham in a manner that had the home supporters roaring approval rather than questioning Ferguson’s tactics. Mikaël Silvestre’s seventh-minute goal, after a mistake by Paul Robinson, seemed to have set the tone, but United, frustrated by the excellence of Michael Dawson and Ledley King in the visiting defence, lost their rhythm and grew nervous long before Jermaine Jenas equalised with an exquisite free kick in the 72nd minute.
DAILY TELEGRAPH
Spurs deny United home comfort
By Tim Rich
On Saturday, Old Trafford watched as Tottenham pressed for a winner
that, but for Michael Carrick thumping a free-kick against the crossbar, they might have achieved.It is a subtle change perhaps, but it may be like noticing a heavy frost before an ice age descends. Old Trafford, where they had not won since Terry Venables was in charge, was supposedly a benchmark for a young Tottenham side of enormous potential.
Ferguson's resources may have been depleted by injury but this was still Manchester United away and at first Tottenham appeared overawed by their task.
But when Jermaine Jenas curled a free-kick beautifully beyond Edwin van der Sar to cancel out Mikael Silvestre's opener, Tottenham looked the likelier winners.
If Arsene Wenger talked about his side's dependency on Thierry Henry last week, then Old Trafford surely expects too much of Wayne Rooney, a player who ceased being a teenager this morning.
By no means did Rooney play badly; there was one gorgeous back-flick that took out Ledley King and would have given Ruud van Nistelrooy a clear opening but for a superb tackle from Michael Dawson. But this was not one of his lovely days and neither was it Manchester United's.
THE GUARDIAN
Kevin McCarra at Old Trafford
Spurs made themselves at home, coped phlegmatically with the loss of a silly goal, stood up to the unsophisticated pressure before the interval and entirely merited a second consecutive draw at this stadium.
There are continuing imbalances in Jol's team, with the full-backs less impressive than the centre-halves and the three attackers yet to fuse.
Even if he is in the throes of constructing a side, Jol is closer to the topping out ceremony than Sir Alex Ferguson. United occasionally seem to be holding the blueprints upside down.
Too many hopes lie with Wayne Rooney and not even this forward, who turns 20 today, can scintillate to order. He played a wonderful pass, from which Ruud van Nistelrooy looked set to establish a 2-0 lead until Michael Dawson's excellent block, but his influence was spasmodic.
Spurs fell behind in the seventh minute when Paul Robinson failed to grab Van Nistelrooy's downward header on the bounce and Mikaël Silvestre knocked in the rebound. Spurs' deeper troubles lay in a three-man midfield that, with the trio of forwards unsuited to dropping back and assisting, was outnumbered as United poured men into that area.
Bardsley's bullish advances on the right provided much of the impetus, but Jol switched Aaron Lennon to that flank and, in the key phase at the opening of the second half, thereby pinned the full-back down. There was a Dutch flavour to a decision that used attacking means to block the opposition. Spurs are certainly bolder these days.
Comebacks are all the rage now. Had the half-time score stayed unaltered in their last three fixtures, Spurs would have taken one point from them, but instead they rallied to beat Charlton and Everton before the venture to Old Trafford.
Jermaine Jenas is having a one-man revival of his own and equalised with a sumptuous free-kick into the top corner following Rio Ferdinand's foul on the substitute Robbie Keane in the 72nd minute. A later set-piece saw a splendid effort by Michael Carrick dip to hit the crossbar.
By now their self-belief should have caught up with their own ability.
THE INDEPENDENT
Slick Spurs the latest to suggest that United are now one-man team
By James Lawton at Old Trafford
There are times when Wayne Rooney, who is 20 today, illuminates not only this storied stadium but, it seems, the entire football world. He makes a joke of those tender years. He conjures wonder and hope; he makes anything seem possible. But not on this occasion when the malaise of Manchester United seemed to be moving beyond the crisis of the day to the dread of unshakeable decline.
Rooney had one moment of improbable brilliance, a pass off the outside of the back of his heel which had the impact of a knife slashing through silk, but without the permanent effect. The admirably composed Spurs defence, in which Ledley King and his young assistant Michael Dawson grew both larger and more flexible by the minute, simply re-formed.
Rooney produced one more amazing feat, running down Aaron Lennon before taking the ball off his feet, rather like a juggernaut turning into the slow lane while nudging aside a bubble car.
Reports that owner Malcolm Glazer is willing to crank up Ferguson's spending power to a significant degree - which in the shadow of Roman Abramovich's Chelsea empire must remain a relative term - can only be reinforced by the clearest evidence of the onset of that disaster: institutionalised mediocrity.
That was the gnawing reality of the slippage of a clear edge over an impressively strengthened, but scarcely devastating, Spurs in the first half. At no stage of the game were United either terribly bad - or terribly good. They simply subsided like an irresolute soufflé.
Cristiano Ronaldo, stewing in his own difficulties in the fast lane, came on to replace a stiffly predictable Darren Fletcher, and the much touted little Giuseppe Rossi had 10 minutes of eager but indecisive running at the cover coolly marshalled by King and Dawson. In midfield Alan Smith started with considerable energy but his influence faded in the face of the still fierce intensity of Edgar Davids, as did that of captain Paul Scholes.
Soon enough, you have to say, Ferguson has to abandon the idea that either Alan Smith or Darren Fletcher can begin to compensate for the ebbing of Roy Keane. For the moment, if he cannot have a Michael Essien, he needs someone more like Davids, a man driven like Keane by the belief that every second of a match is a test as much of his will as his ability.
Tottenham’s growing composure in the second half should have produced more impact than Jermaine Jenas's imperiously struck free-kick, which equalised United's early strike after Paul Robinson had uncharacteristically dropped the ball at Mikaël Silvestre's feet. If Blackburn won here recently, why not Spurs, for whom good defence is augmented by the midfield craft of Davids and Michael Carrick, the late-budding confidence of Jenas and the bite of Jermain Defoe? Man of the match: Davids.