Manchester United will not win the Premier League unless Rio Ferdinand gets fit and returns to Rolls-Royce best

So vibrant and committed were Fulham on Sunday that the solid foundations carefully laid by Roy Hodgson show no signs of being bulldozed on Mark Hughes’ watch.

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The hosts, whose compact, atmospheric home on the Thames seems to imbue the players with the kind of extra powers once the preserve of Southampton at the Dell, twice came from behind and even kept out a penalty cruelly awarded for Damien Duff merely kneeing the ball a couple of inches into his own hand.

The moral high ground was already theirs by the time Brede Hangeland sent a last-gasp header crashing into Edwin van der Sar’s net to cancel out his own unfortunate stab into the Fulham goal moments earlier.

As unfortunate as Duff was to concede a penalty, Nemanja Vidic was lucky that referee Peter Walton did not point to the spot after he got up close and personal with Moussa Dembele’s shirt.

United played their part in a nose-to-nose showdown in which, in the best Premier League tradition, neither side were willing to blink first.

After the visitors had pummelled Fulham in the early skirmishes, Hughes’ came back off the ropes and responded with a few well directed punches of their own, enough for United’s spell at their hoodoo ground to now read one league point gained in three seasons.

Credit is due to Fulham for pressing and harrying United with great intensity in the last three-quarters of the game. Hughes’ team refused to meet their doom and, led by the effervescent Bobby Zamora, always offered a threat to the visitors’ goal.

It was the backline that was the weakest link in United’s chain. Sir Alex Ferguson’s team won three consecutive Premier League titles based on the Vidic-Rio Ferdinand-Patrice Evra-Edwin van der Sar axis complimented by the versatility of Wes Brown, John O’Shea and the more infrequent appearances of Jonny Evans and Gary Neville.

Strikers win games and defences win titles, goes the refrain. By that logic, United are less well equipped than they were during their 2007-2009 period of dominance.

The manner in which Zamora monstered Evans will do nothing for United fans worried that he is not the solution to the questions posed by Ferdinand’s increasingly lengthy absences.

Evans | Still needs fine-tuning

Zamora’s height, upper body strength, technique and increasing confidence in his ability to manoeuvre centre-halves where they don’t want to go was a textbook lesson in centre-forward play.

The new England targetman was also canny enough to realise that Evans is the junior of United’s second-choice centre-half pairing and attached himself to the Irishman’s left-sided station.

It was the key to Fulham gaining a foothold on a gripping encounter after the Paul Scholes Appreciation Society gained new members with his latest masterful finish and early command of the midfield.

But, just as Scholes and United faded, so Fulham and Zamora grew in strength and belief and by the time the whistle blew on a rousing finale, Evans’ reputation had taken a dent.

The 22-year-old who came to prominence in the 2008-09 season may be regarded as the heir to Ferdinand’s throne but his game still needs some fine-tuning before he acquires any of Rio’s Rolls-Royce smoothness.

The Northern Ireland international trod water last season as he suffered from the sophomore syndrome that is so familiar to young sportsmen

Given that the club’s other senior back-up, Chris Smalling, is two years younger than Evans and has only played 13 top-flight games, there is a vast gap between the battle-hardened experience of Vidic and Ferdinand and the callowness of the Old Trafford apprentices.

Premier League strike forces across the land will have taken note and sharpened their boots in anticipation of United offering some rare vulnerability, certainly on their travels.

If Zamora, for all his vast improvement, can rip apart last season’s runners-up, what would Didier Drogba, Carlos Tevez and a fully fit Fernando Torres do?

Evans’ supporters will point to the way he helped to keep Tyneside cult hero Andy Carroll quiet at Old Trafford six days previously but there is evidence that he can be bullied in a manner that Vidic and Ferdinand rarely are.

Unless Rio returns to full fitness – and the latest bulletins are that he will be back at the end of September – and the peaks scaled at his grand best, it is hard to see United being as impregnable as they were in the 2006-07 and 2007-08 campaigns in particular.

The 18-times League champions’ title challenge could depend upon it.

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