United held by Spurs

The Bulgaria international, who left Spurs for United on transfer deadline day, barely got sight of a chance and Spurs goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes was equal to the efforts of Berbatov's team-mates.

Liverpool and Arsenal both picking up draws earlier in the day offered Sir Alex Ferguson's men an incentive but the visitors failed to break the deadlock.

The visitors' attempts to break the Tottenham defence did not get them very far, even though Ledley King's frail knee prevented him from taking part and Jonathan Woodgate lasted just 10 minutes after coming off worst in a tackle with Carlos Tevez.

Ji-Sung Park and Michael Carrick both had shots deflected wide but Gomes, who Redknapp is persevering with despite a string of awful mishaps, was relatively untroubled until Rio Ferdinand forced him into a save in first-half stoppage time.

At the other end Edwin Van der Sar denied David Bentley and Aaron Lennon, then reacted quickly enough to block Roman Pavlyuchenko's follow-up.

Cristiano Ronaldo did have the ball in the net from the corner but referee Mike Dean correctly ruled it out for handball.

It was the beginning of a long period of United pressure, although it took the introduction of Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs to bring an air of real menace to their attacks.

Giggs supplied the cross from which Nemanja Vidic's header was saved by Gomes before Ferdinand nodded over at the near post.

A goalmouth scramble that ended with Michael Carrick driving a low shot at Gomes also came from Giggs' set piece delivery.