Alexis Sanchez's latest contribution to £ 75,000 sums up the current critical situation of Man Utd – Andy Dunn

During another of his instantly unforgettable cameos, there was a moment when Alexis Sanchez somehow took possession of the ball in a vaguely threatening position.

This is the case if a position can be vaguely threatening to the well-paid Chilean.

Under little pressure, he had the opportunity to send a dangerous bullet through the penalty area.

He shut him up.

Meanwhile, one of his co-replacements, Marcos Rojo, was in a sort of frenzied and violent mission to end the participation of a Chelsea player.

It did not matter who. Gonzalo Higuain survived a Reducer Rojo, Willian no.

In a sense, the contributions of Sanchez and Rojo have summarized the current Manchester United.

Unruly, unstructured, unfit, unable to give Chelsea a moment of serious concern after Marcos Alonso's equalizer, United continued to seek the horse of victory in the Champions League.

Even though their last two games lead only to the Huddersfield and Cardiff challenges, United are now the top four outsiders to win one of the two spots.

Maurizio Sarri's team deserved a decent credit, after a finish between Juan Mata, between Romelu Lukaku and Luke Shaw, the product of an ingenious interaction so rarely orchestrated by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Maneuvered with confidence by David Luiz, Chelsea's defense was rarely troubled after Mata's goal, while Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic fared much better in the midfield argument.

If Higuain had not had his offside course on some sort of loop, if Eden Hazard had been a bit more at his game, they might have joined the growing list of United's winners, but one point is very useful in their quest for fourth place.

It was, of course, a point that David de Gea had offered them. Well, from De Gea and Solskjaer.

The work done by the Spanish goalkeeper in recent weeks has been so poor that it should have made all this brilliant year superfluous.

It should have been abandoned, but Solskjaer simply trusted De Gea on a historical basis.

De Gea had only one serious job to do: put together a long ranger, Antonio Rudiger, who could be described as speculative.

But at the approach of halftime, he came out – in the manner of a soap – at Alonso, who was getting closer to the inside of the upright men to level things out.

That's how it was, that's how it always seemed to stay.

An extended second half interspersed with interruptions – one for what looked like an ugly injury to Eric Bailly and one for what looked like a shoulder problem for Marcus Rashford – was only a problem. a 52-minute demonstration of why these two teams can only see City and Liverpool as points on the horizon.

Naturally, from an American point of view, these lost points will be attributed to De Gea's fleshy account.

But the last of De Gea's mistakes was only a bright symbol of the discomfort found in the team.

They did not have the creativity nor the physical or mental resilience to recover from failure.

And as he watched the unfortunate Sanchez earn his last £ 75,000 appearance bonus, it told Solskjaer what he had known for some time.

The necessary surgery is radical.