United were held at home today by Chelsea, who managed to equalise after going a goal down just before half-time. Tommy Mooney put United ahead just three minutes before the break after a fine right-wing cross from Rob Wolleaston, Mooney’s snap shot powering in beneath Carlo Cudicini. The Premiership visitors managed to claw themselves back into the game in the 67th minute, when Eidur Gudjonnsen set up new signing Mateja Kezman, who beat Simon Cox from six yards. Kezman had already hit the bar in the first half and the post in the second, but he eventually managed to get a shot on target. Shortly before Chelsea scored, United had almost doubled their lead when a Julian Alsop header was cleared off the line.

Graham Rix used this friendly exercise as an opportunity to look at most of his squad, although both Jon Ashton and Mark Rawle were carrying slight knocks and weren’t risked. The starting line-up was Chris Tardif in goal; Dave Mackay, Leo Roget, Dave Woozley, Matt Robinson in defence; Wolleaston, Barry Quinn, and Danny Brown in midfield; and a front three of Mooney, Steve Basham, and Lee Bradbury. Bradbury only lasted six minutes before he felt a twinge and he immediately left the field as a precaution, to be replaced by Alsop. At half-time Cox came on for Tardif, Terry Parker replaced Robbo, and Mark E’Beyer replaced Brown. Seven minutes into the second half the Rage On Sponsored Chris Hackett came on for Basham and, in something of a surprise, Jefferson Louis took over from Roget in central defence, and didn’t do too badly at all. After another six or seven minutes Rix made a triple substitution, replacing goalscorer and instant hero Mooney with Danny Morgan, Wolleaston with Michael Alexis, and Quinn with Paul Wanless. Further substitutions followed ten minutes from time, with triallist Lee Molyneaux* coming on for Mackay, and Adam Garner coming on for Woozley. Finally, the biggest cheer of the day, even bigger than the one that greeted Mooney’s goal, greeted the arrival of Jamie Brooks, who replaced Alsop with six minutes left, and who almost scored with his first touch (we will neatly gloss over the fact that he actually tripped over the ball).

*Actually, we think he’s a triallist, but it was notable that Molyneaux was wearing the number 25 shirt while Louis, who was listed as number 25 when the squad numbers were released last week, was in fact wearing number 26.

So, what can United learn from this, bearing in mind all the usual caveats about it being a meaningless pre-season friendly against a side that allowed the players a bit more space, and at a lower pace, than might be the case against some bunch of lower-division hackers on a wet February evening? We can learn that the defence is generally solid, although concerns remain about strength in depth. We can learn that there are some classy players now wearing the Yellow (or Black, as it was today) in midfield. We can learn that we have a bit of a decent threat up front. We can learn that the Rix passing on the floor ethos seems well and truly entrenched in the mindset of most of the players, and we can learn that we have big bruisers and some nippy lit’luns, which is nice (and potentially quite a useful mix). We didn’t learn much about Chelsea because, to be frank, we weren’t actually watching them.

The referee was our old friend Dermot Gallagher. The attendance was given as 11,282. Because of the nature of this match we’re not bothering to produce a fuller match report – we’ll save that for Boston.