After a decent little spell of possession from Tottenham a Ronaldo free kick was only parried by Paul Robinson into the path of Ryan Giggs who headed United in front after just eight minutes.
Mido featured mostly on the left-hand side of a five-man midfield. Jermaine Jenas was blocked on route to goal after linking up nicely with Robbie Keane in the 20th minute.
Michael Dawson got on the end of a chip by Edgar Davids but Edwin van der Sar got his hands to the effort and also denied King with the follow-up in the 37th minute.
Mido who had a good second debut for the club took up more of a centre-forward role at half time as Jenas moved out onto the right and made hard work for Patrice Evra.
Dawson had to intervene as Ronaldo and Saha produced United first threat of the second half as Spurs dominated for long periods.
Substitute Jermain Defoe looked dangerous and after beating Kieran Richardson couldn't pull the trigger with necessary aplomb. Then he couldn't get on the end of Benoit Assou-Ekotto's cross enough with his head to worry the United rearguard.
Mido twice and Defoe again missed with headers. Saha made a nuisance of himself further as gaps began to appear at the back as Tottenham pushed up desperately in hunt of the equaliser they deserved but United hung on.
Martin Jol: "I felt we could have had a result. In the last two seasons we've done well at Old Trafford and managed two good results – two draws – and we never gave a lot of chances away.
"This time we maybe gave away three or four but on the other hand there were five or six possibilities for us and that's the only disappointment.
"If you create five or six chances you should score but we didn't, so that's the frustrating thing.
"United have a lot of pace and quality up front but defensively they were strong as well. We watched three or four matches and they didn't give a lot away.
"We knew exactly what we wanted to do and that was to hit the space behind the defence and we should have scored from that.
"Alex Ferguson praised us afterwards for a decent game. We did well but that was the only positive I could take out of it."
"We didn't give away a lot before the free-kick that led to their goal, but it's the minor things coming to the surface. The team needed to talk to each other more, defending the free-kick 30 yards out someone had to be in front of the ball. It's the same little things that we did wrong against Bolton and Everton, that was the biggest disappointment to be honest."
"I thought it was a good performance because we created four or five good opportunities."
We had a number of new players in at Old Trafford plus Ledley King coming back. Berbatov was injured but Mido came in and he wanted to do well for us. I thought Chimbonda and Ghaly did well, that was positive."
"I just think if we could have had more self-belief in the first half against United we could have done better. The crowd saw that they had a game on their hands and we couldn't take advantage of that. That was disappointing."
"We haven't started the season well. On top of that Aaron Lennon picked up an injury in training (on Friday) so we couldn't consider him for selection."
"It's only a small tear in his (knee) cartilage but it was a disappointment. We played without him in pre-season and others did well."
Ledley King: "I went up for a header and came down with cramp. I didn't want to go down, but I was in a situation where I wouldn't have been able to move properly so I had to.
"It was not a problem. The knee was fine and hopefully that is behind me. The gaffer said it was five months since my last full Premiership game and that seemed like a long time.
"I'd been preparing to come back for a little while and I was focused on a doing a job. I managed to get through it."
Source: TottenhamHotspur.com