Manchester United Get Coal in Their Holiday Stocking

At a time when the Red Devils need to grab every point on the table, dudes get butterfingers.

Manchester United hosted Burnley on Boxing Day, well aware the Clarets are having the sorta season that harkened back to their glory days from an era or two ago.

In fact, they're sitting seventh in the Premiership, so United had a task ahead of them.

Frankly, it took them a while to realize it.

The match went down to the wire before the Red Devils came from behind to salvage a 2-2 draw.

Burnley has always been a problem for top tier teams and this was no different. Dude's didn't take long to serve notice, either, as in three minutes after kickoff.

United's schoolboy set-piece defending led to the first goal, complements of Ashley Barnes.

Incredibly, the home team were still in inept mode half an hour later, when careless defense in the danger zone resulted in a free kick that required a masterstroke to convert.

Steven Defour accepted the challange and delivered nothing less than this gem:

David de Gea was beaten from outside the box for the first time this season, and if he couldn’t stop that, then no one short of the X-Men could.

If then.

Just sayin'.

Jesse Lingard came off the bench after intermission, and provided the spark United needed to get back into contention.

Within a few minutes, dude got one back for the Devils with a cheeky little flick:

Game on.

United's known for late-goal winners, but this time they became late-game salvagers as Lingard bailed them out a minute into time added on:

Burnley's play these days is such that they'll have left Old Trafford feeling empty for not finishing the job, whereas other non-big brands would've rejoiced at nicking a point from that hallowed venue.

Still, the mind-boggling stat from this one was United outshot the Clarets, 23-3.

That's not a typo.

It's been a frustrating run for United lately, which includes their tumbling out of the League Cup at the hands of Bristol City.

Worse, if that's possible, they also backed into a dodgy 2-2 draw at Leicester City where they not only couldn't score from the 73rd minute onward after the Foxes were down to ten men, they also tossed two points back in the pool in the 94th minute.

But José Mourinho continues to put his best foot forward, refusing to diss his players in public.

Others are not so generous.