Apologies, I must have missed some: “You used the word Cross 58 times and C*** 6 times!,” emails Fraser Thomas.

Rene time comes to the rescue. Fulham’s players ran themselves into the ground with that performance - an incredible defensive display in which they relied on a fair amount of luck. In retrospect, it’s hard to blame Moyes’s tactics: if your side flings over 80 crosses into the box yet manages to only tuck away one chance from those crosses it suggests your side’s finishing leaves much to be desired. Still, this leaves United in a right old pickle. Their next four matches are away from home, too.

Well done Fulham - it wasn’t pretty, but anytime Darren Bent is sticking in last minute equalisers, you know your luck is in. Thanks for all your emails, I’m off for a cup of tea before turning my attention to Monaco v PSG later this evening.

That’s it! United kick off and go on the attack, frantically. They can’t get an effort on goal though and the referee blows for full time! What a result for Fulham! What a mad game!

90 min+4: Sidwell passes a wonderful ball into the box for Richardson, he slides the ball across the goal and Bent stuffs it home. Old Trafford has gone from full volume to pin drop quiet.

90 min +3: A bad ball out from Stekelenburg falls to Van Persie outside the box. The keeper backpedals furiously as Van Persie tries to chip him but he overhits his shot.

90 min +2: Fulham launch a long pass up the pitch. Smalling heads it back out. So they do it again, this time searching for Sidwell. Holtby eventually hoofs a shot at goal and United counter-attack. The ball falls to Mata outside the box and hs dinks the ball just wide of Stekelenburgs left-hand post.

90 min + 1: Manchester United pass the ball around the back four, playing out the first of four minutes of extra time by playing keep ball.

90 min: Gary Neville awards Steve Sidwell the man of the match gong - and it’s hard to argue. The Fulham captain’s work rate has been astonishing today and he has been at the heart of what has been a good (if occasionally lucky) backs-to-the-wall performance.

88 min: “Please tell David that despite the win, this is not United that I love and adore,” emails Ritesh Kukrety. “I am going to deactivate my Sky subscription now. I want to watch crosses, I might as well watch a church service. Though they may fall short of the numbers Moyes can come up with, I think it will provide much more excitement.” I’ll let him know when I see him, Ritesh.

88 min: Corner to Manchester United. They play it short, bucking the crossing trend. Evra drives the ball across goal and Smalling is unable to deal with the pace of it: his effort goes over the bar.

86 min: Fulham have finally worked out that they are allowed to attack and Holtby attempts to find room for a shot. But Rooney bludgeons the ball off him and hoofs it up the left wing.

86 min: Evra finds Januzaj in the box with a c****. The young starlet hits the ball with some venom but right into Hernandez. H looks remarkably peeved too.

84 min: 74 crosses! UNITED HAVE HIT 74 CROSSES. Meanwhile, Carrick rattles a full blooded shot at goal from distance. Stekelenburg saves.

82 min: The relief on Moyes’s face! Like a man trapped on a motorway for three hours with a full bladder, who finally sees the glowing lights of a Welcome Break.

81 min: “CROSSES WERE ALWAYS THE ANSWER. MOYES IN.” shouts Joe McGrath.

80 min: So the first goal: Mata found Evra, who crossed low and hard. He found Mata, who tucked the ball back to Van Persie who drilled it home from a few yards out. The second: Carrick found himself in possession in the D. For a split second the white wall of Fulham defenders parted and he thumped a great shot into the top of the net, the ball deflecting off Parker on the way to goal.

76 min: Rooney finds Van Persie in the D, but he can’t find a way past the four defenders who form a wall in front of him.

76 min: An entire minute passes without a Manchester United cross … oh wait, there it is. Rooney crosses to the back stick. After the ball does a bit of bobbling around Fulham do their thing.

74 min: Rooney hits the corner. It’s a cross. Who would have thought? Fulham cl … oh, I can’t even be bothered to type it anymore.

74 min: Januzaj crosses. Corner. Which will lead to ANOTHER DAMN CROSS!

73 min: Van Persie plays the ball out wide to Januzaj. He crosses. Of course he crosses. THAT’S ALL ANYONE IS DOING. STOP HITTING CROSSES!

72 min: Holtby goes down, gasping for air after a challenge in which he was winded. It gives Fulham a chance to get their breath back - something Holtby requires more than the rest of the side.

71 min: Mata finds Evra, who c******. Burn c****s.

70 min: Januzaj c****** to Van Persie. He shoots from near the byline. Fulham clear.

69 min: Januzaj hits a nice backheel to allow Evra the space to c****. His c**** goes over everyone’s heads in the box.United are playing eight up front at the moment. Fulham are playing nine back. Rooney decides to bypass the lot and rakes a shot just wide of Stekelenburg’s post.

68 min: Here come Valencia and Hernandez. They may as well come on for Vidic and Smalling, given how little that pair are doing. Instead, they come on for Rafael and Ashley Young, who has had a good game today.

67 min: A Fulham attack! An actual Fulham attack! Reither runs forward and crosses across the penalty area. Richardson attempted to get up there to get on the end of it, but looked a little out of puff by the time he managed it. United deal with it neatly enough, go up the other end and CROSS AGAIN! This time Rafael dinks the ball into the side netting, just for variety.

65 min: Mata finds Evra on the left wing. Sidwell puts in a good challenge to stop him from crossing. Again Fulham are sitting back with even Darren Bent behind the ball. Jauzaj manages to find some space, though, and he cross from the right wing to Ashley Young at the back post. Young is unable to steer the header on target.

64 min: Januzaj crosses for Young at the back post. He nods it back to Rooney - who appears to be playing in central midfield now - who attacks the ball with both legs and most of his body but can’t get a strong enough connection to get the ball on goal. Scott Parker is coming on for Fulham. He replaces Tunnicliffe.

62 min: Januzaj flashes up the right wing and his contribution is to … cross the ball! Stekelenburg claims.

61 min: Januzaj comes on and Darren Fletcher comes off, with Mata presumably moving into a central area. Not that Mata wasn’t largely playing in a central area anyway. So another winger then. More crosses!

59 min: Here comes Januzaj. He’s just getting final instructions from Moyes.

58 min: Burn gets lucky. He and Van Persie chase the same ball into the box and the Fulham defender appears to handle it. Van Persie is apoplectic, demanding a penalty but neither linesman nor referee blow up for it.

57 min: Manchester United have had 80% of the possession in this half. “Do you think Moyes has ever heard that famous Einstein quote concerning the definition of insanity? Given their match against Stoke, and this game so far, I’m guessing not,” guesses Ben Paul, rather selfishly using two forenames instead of the usual forename/surname combination.

56 min: Evra crosses to Rooney. Heitinga clears. A moment laterYoung pings in a great cross to the back post for Rafael. To provide some contrast, he connects rather than allowing Fulham to clear. He is, unfortunately offside, though Stekelenburg saves well anyway.

55 min: What goalkeeping! Young crosses into the box from the left wing and he parries the ball directly to Van Persie (that wasn’t the good goalkeeping bit). Van Persie finds Rooney who powers a shot at the top of the goal - Stekelenburg shoots up a hand and tips the ball over the bar. He should have caught the first ball, mind. But you can’t have everything.

53 min: If there isn’t an update for a while, just copy and paste this into a word document endlessly for your own amusement: “United cross into the box, Fulham clear”. This time, Rooney finds himself with the ball inside the box. He crosse, Fulham clear.

52 min: Rooney plays Lou Reed to Sidwell’s Thin White Duke and blazes a ball just as high over the bar at the other end.

51 min: Sidwell fashions a chance of sorts. The ball falls to him some way away from goal. His shot is higher than David Bowie in his Thin White Duke years.

50 min: Mata plays a magnificent long ball from one side of the pitch to the other to Young. The winger drives towards the box and finds Van Persie, who has shaken off any markers by charging around the back of Young and into the penalty area. His shot/cross goes just wide of the far post though.

49 min: Rafael crosses again, Burn knocks it up in the air and Van Persie can only pass out of the area. Carrick drives a low pass into the box, but the ball is knocked out again. Evra finally hammers a cross into the box, which is nodded over by a United head for a goal kick.

48 min: Holtby knocks it long upfield for Bent to chase. The United defence make an almighty hash of things and Fulham end up with a throw-in high up the pitch. They send a total of five players up to try to make something of it, with only Bent in front of the ball.

We’re off again: No changes for United, despite the fact Januzaj was warming up at half-time. No changes in tactics either: Rafael hoofs a cross high and wastefully over the penalty area.

Ho ho! Fulham are bringing on the big guns in an attempt to wrap this one up. Darren Bent is coming on - Tankovic is coming off.

Here’s Ian Fielding with some stats I haven’t verified. “United after 90 mins of their 3-2 victory over Fulham last season: 5/37 crosses completed. United after 45 mins of this match: 6/44 crosses completed. A lot has been made about United’s reliance on crosses this season, but I’m not sure it’s Moyes’ strategy as such; it seems to be more a case of the players reverting to a default approach because they haven’t got any other ideas going forward. Although I’m supportive of Moyes and think he needs time to grow into the United job, I can’t help but wonder if the players are getting the right coaching on their attacking movement. “

“Re Lou Roper’s corncern for the fate of our prawn cocktail industry, it is of course actually the prawn sandwich filling business that is potentially taking the hit around Old Trafford. Quote 4 on this list,” wites Stephen Cooper, both pedantically and accurately.

There are 178,000 Google results if you type Moyes “got to the byline” into the search engine. Do you suspect that, given Google has worked out Moyes’s tactics, it might be time to think of Plan B?

“With United trailing at halftime, their strikers really have a cross to bear in the second half,” emails Simon Naylor-Copestake, whose name brings up the terrifying possibility that serial MBM emailers Simon McMahon, Gary Naylor and Ian Copestake have joined forces and merged into the same person.

Glory, Glory Man United tootles out of the PA with a degree of irony, as Moyes walks off the pitch looking for all the world like he wants to sit in a corner and have a cry.

Peep-peep! Fulham concede a free-kick on the United right wing. Mata delivers on the stroke of half-time but again the ball is cleared. Holtby and Tankovic combine to find Richardson he races down the other end. Holtby tries to make himself free on the edge of the box, but Rooney has charged back to clear. The corner is taken, unenthusiastically, and the referee parps for half time.

45 min: Young is free on the left. Again. He whips a cross over every single United player and to the back post. Mata should have been the man to be there, but he was being vaguely but technically brilliant elsewhere. Riise - rather than simply heading the ball behind - chests it at the top corner, forcing Stekelenburg to tip it behind. United again attack from the corner and Stekelenburg again makes a good save from a tame shot.

43 min: It’s hard to know what Moyes has to do here. United are continually flinging the ball into the box and frequently finding their own players with them, yet there are so many Fulham defenders in the box that they cannot get the ball through the crowd.

“Has no one thought of the calamitous effects of United’s efforts this season on the prawn-cocktail sellers? Surely the government will have to intervene to support this ‘vital industry’ if this state of affairs continues?” asks Lou Roper.

42 min: Mata controls a ball coming over his shoulder at high speed with an immaculate first touch. He really is a sensational player and today has been drifting all across the frontline with precisely the sort of indiscipline Mourinho hates but which can unlock defences. He hasn’t managed it yet, however.

40 min: Carrick blasts a shot at goal and Stekelenburg makes an excellent save as the ball flashes through the crowd of defenders. The ball breaks to Van Persie who smashes a shot on target but it hits Sidwell and goes behind. Mata’s corner finds Vidic, steaming into the box like a freight train. He connects magnificently but nuts the ball straight at the keeper! This cannot go on ...

38 min: Young crosses from a corner again, and Richardson flicks the ball clear. The ball breaks to Tankovic who runs the length of the pitch with it! Richardson charges upfield behind him and Tankovic feeds him on the edge of the box. Richardson has only De Gea to beat, but the the keeper stands tall and the Fulham man blazes over after an epic pitch-long sprint. That could very easily have been 2-0.

36 min: All 11 Fulham players are in their own penalty area to deal with another United attack. They concede a corner, which United do nothing with as they seem utterly unable to break down the bus that has been parked in front of the Fulham goal. Sidwell, incidentally, appears to be driving that bus.

35 min: Fletcher hits long into the box and Van Persie and Sidwell have a good battle to get hold of the ball. Sidwell contemplates just launching the ball upfield but then realises there is not a single Fulham player further forward than their own penalty box. Van Persie challenges him and just about gets a shot away. Stekelenburg saves. “Moyes is making both United players and fans cross,” toots Niall Mullen.

33 min: Young, yawn, crosses from the left wing. He hits it straight at Stekelenburg, who catches it. Fulham appear to be happy to give Young and Rafael (who is playing more as a right winger, than right back while Mata drifts about) room to cross. Perhaps, given they have the giant Burns in the box, they suspect they’ll be able to handle it.

31 min: United pass the ball around just outside the area. Every single Fulham player is behind the ball. Rafael works himself a chance to ... you guessed it ... cross again. Fulham clear.

30 min: Van Persie is at the back stick again, and he knocks down a Fletcher cross right across the goalline. There is no-one following it up. “United under David Moyes ... more crosses than Vatican City,” honks Joe McGrath.

29 min: Fletcher hurls a cross into the box and again Fulham clear. But the ball breaks for Carrick and he smashes a swerving ball from distance just wide of the post. A moment later, Mata runs at the Fulham defence. He aims his cross for Van Persie at the back post but the Fulham defence remain resolute. United’s only form of attack at the moment is to cross.

27 min: Holtby hammers a ball from the halfway line to the only other Fulham player in the United half - Tankovic. Vidic clears things up with a certain amount of disdain. United go up the other end and attack: first Carrick has a shot from distance that fells Sidwell, then Mata clonks a lovely ball to the back post. Stekelenburg gets a hand to it and still United keep on coming. The attack eventually ends when the keeper again gets a hand to a Rafael cross, before finally catching the thing and breathing a sigh of relief.

26 min: Van Persie is clear on the left wing now and he too crosses high into the box. Rafael attempts to get onto the ball but former United man Richardson clears simply enough.

25 min: David Moyes is standing on the touchline, clapping his hands and offering encouragement - in much the style of a man with a glass of water and a towering inferno in front of him to put out.

24 min: Young again gets clear on the left, allowed all sorts of space by Reither. His cross goes over everyone though, and Fulham clear. The visitors have reverted to how they started the game: entirely defensive and rooted in their own half. Still, it’s working so far!

22 min: Fulham have not shown the slightest inkling to attack today. Tankovic is nominally a striker but he’s barely playing as one today, so withdrawn is he. Fulham looked like they were just sitting back waiting to get beaten, so they’ll be delighted with that. United have responded with fury in the shape of a series of attacks. Rafael hits a lovely ball to the back post and Van Persie comes charging in but, with the goal at his mercy, he plonks the ball oer the bar. A sitter for someone of his ability.

20 min: What ludicrous defending.! Holtby floated a delicious ball into the area from what is Fulham’s only attack of the game. Sidwell, completely unmarked, comes ambling into the box and sticks the ball past De Gea from about the penalty spot. Oh, Moyes!

17 min: Vidic ambles forwards then offloads to Evra. He and Young combine up the left wing before Evra fires in a low cross to Rooney. A thousand Fulham defenders congregate on him and the ball breaks to Young whose cross is nodded behind for a corner. Mata and Rooney take it short but to little effect.

15 min: Smalling clobbers a long ball from his own half into the Fulham box, bypassing Mata, Rooney, Van Persie and everyone else. Which seems an odd decision from him.

13 min: Rooney wangs in a cross from distance and Van Persie rushes through to get on the end of it. Stekelenburg is off his line sharply, though. Good ball from Rooney.

12 min: Evra has a shot from distance and a gentleman in the stands gets a nasty shock. Another shock comes from TV pictures of another gentleman in the stands: the Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall is sitting next to Alex Ferguson, hair clashing masterfully with the colour of Fergie’s nose.

11 min: Apologies, it was Reither who made that excellent challenge

10 min: Three excellent, first touch passes between Young, Mata and someone else get Van Persie into the box, but Heitinga puts in a very good challenge to prevent the striker from getting a shot away.

9 min: What on earth was going on there? A weak pass was knocked back towards Vidic inside the United area. He turned to look for De Gea to pass it back to again, but the keeper was nowhere to be seen. With Sidwell in close attendance, Vidic is lucky to emerge from the incident unscathed.

6 min: Young is in miles of space on the left wing. He charges into the box under no pressure from Reither at all. Young hits a good cross into the middle and Burn nods behind. Stekelenburg punches Rooney’s corner clear. Madness from Reither to give Young that much room.

6 min: Evra works a slide-rule ball through to Van Persie, running into the area. Stekelenburg comes out to claim. Incidentally, how come Fulham always seem to manage to sign excellent keepers?

5 min: Mata’s corner is cleared but United attack again. The ball is worked back to Mata by Rooney, but he hits a poor cross which is easily cleared.

4 min: United string some passes together and work the ball up the right wing. A cross comes in from Rafael but is cleared only as far as Vidic. He passes to Evra, who crosses in again. Fulham hoof clear but United have the heat on and press hard again. Eventually a second Rafael cross goes behind for a corner.

“I can’t believe Januzaj is on the bench yet again,” howls Kyan Zarbalian. “Since Mata has signed Januzaj hasn’t started and has barely featured. So it seems as though Moyes has spent £37M to solve the only problem the team didn’t have (apart from goalkeeper). I’m moderately confident Man United will still win the game but to remove the only bright spark of a relatively woeful season so far is a bit odd.”

2 min: Lots of of passing the ball back to Stekelenburg in the opening minutes. That is all.

We’re off: After a minute’s silence in memory of the victims of the Munich disaster, the coin is tossed and Fulham captain Steve Sidwell appears to call right. He resists the opportunity to force all the teams to change ends. Which is a shame.

“Yes, yes Tom,” points out Elliot Barnsley. “But Eric Djemba Djemba made his St Mirren debut today. He made some horror challenges, got skinned by a lumbering forward for a goal and was subbed midway through the second half of a game they lost.”

The teams come tip-tapping down the tunnel and out onto the pitch to a fanfare. Robin Van Persie and Nemanja Vidic wander out clutching the hands of nippers who, the commentators tell us, are their own kids. Which is nice.

“Whoa, Tom,” writes JR in Illinois. “That Fulham lineup is as ugly as homemade soup. I’m sure this is not an unusual prediction but I think they are in for a world of hurt.” I think Meulensteen’s tactics are twofold. One, he clearly seems concerned about the whole ‘big pitch’ thing, so he’s dropped all the old players and put in younger players with fresher legs. Secondly, playing Parker, Bent, Hangeland etc has hardly worked so far this season, has it? So he may as well chuck in the kids.

David Moyes was talking just then too: he says he hopes Mata is settling in. Mike Phelan points out that Mata is “not a Manchester United player yet”, so someone might want to get down to the pitch and tell him to get off the grass and take the United kit off he’s using as he’s warming up. It looks as though he’s going to play wide today - Mata, that is - and will probably cut in and do his own thing.

The whole big pitch, little pitch thing. It’s quite odd, isn’t it?

Wayne Rooney’s mouth is moving. This is the gist of what is coming out: “we’ll see how the partnership between me, Robin and Juan goes”. Kvist is doing something similar a moment later, he seems a bright young man. He says Fulham have a “superb plan” to beat Manchester United. Oh, and here’s Rene: he says he’s looking for a little more energy out of his side as Old Trafford is a “big pitch”. Mike Phelan, another former United No2, agrees with him about the size of the pitch from the Sky commentary box. Meulensteen says some other things too, basically he’s hoping he might win.

Is it me, or is there a passing resemblance between the Dutchman Rene Meulensteen and a different, French, Rene?

For United, Vidic is selected again after suspension. There is no room for Phil Jones, who was thought to be available again while Evans is out with a calf strain. For Fulham, there is no place for record signing Kostas Mitroglou who is not yet fit, which will be a blow for a club who are struggling to score.

Man Utd: De Gea, Rafael, Smalling, Vidic, Evra; Mata, Carrick, Fletcher, Young; Rooney, van Persie

Subs: Lindegaard, Ferdinand, Giggs, Valencia, Kagawa, Januzaj, Hernandez

Fulham: Stekelenburg; Riether, Burn, Heitinga, Riise; Tunnicliffe, Sidwell, Kvist, Richardson; Holtby, Tankovic

Subs: Stockdale, Hangeland, Kacaniklic, Duff, Cole, Parker and Bent

Rene Meulensteen’s return to Old Trafford will be a troubled one. While Sir Alex Ferguson’s No2 at the club, he earned himself a reputation as a strong and innovative coach but since his departure – Moyes said he chose to leave, rather than being fired – his career has not exactly gone with a song and dance. He lasted 16 days as coach of Anzhi (the victim of cutbacks, rather than a problem with his coaching) and has so far steered Fulham unerringly to the bottom of the table.

Then again, he’s hardly the only Fergie-backed coach to be struggling. Jacob Steinberg has pointed out how Ferguson’s number twos (come, come now) have hardly stepped up without him and David Moyes appears to be another coach to have received Ferguson’s blessing before letting him down. Nemanja Vidic’s decision to do one at his earliest available opportunity (this summer) a further dampener on the mood – while you suspect Rio Ferdinand and Patrice Evra will not be long before they jump ship either.

Things are looking good for Fulham today. They might be rooted to the bottom of the table, they might have a manager who appears not to know how to turn their form around, and they might have been responsible for the worst game in all football when losing to Sheffield United in extra time in the FA Cup, but today things are bright.

They arrive in Manchester in the knowledge that they have only ever won twice at Old Trafford – in October 2003 and March 1963. That might, on the surface of things, appear to be a bad omen of course. But this is the season in which to break records against Manchester United.

Since David Moyes took over the club, the records have come tumbling down – though not perhaps in the direction Moyes might have liked. Stoke recorded their first win against Manchester United since 1984 last Saturday. In January, Swansea beat them for the first time ever at Old Trafford in the Cup, knocking them out in the third round for just the second time in 29 years.

Several more United records have been broken this season: West Brom beat them at home for the first time since 1978, Newcastle beat them at home for the first time since 1972 and Moyes’s old Everton side beat them at Old Trafford for the first time since 1992.

So perhaps all Rene Meulensteen has to do today is simply relax, take it easy and let David Moyes do all the hard work for him.