The devil usually found in Manchester United's football took a holiday at Old Trafford yesterday. They gave a performance which was more paternal than infernal as Newcastle sent Alex Ferguson's team down to third place in the table behind Arsenal, when they had been hoping to reduce Aston Villa's lead at the top to a point.

Newcastle, weakened by injuries and still reorganising under Ruud Gullit, will have taken heart from the success they enjoyed in both containing United and achieving opportunities to win the match with counter-attacks.

In the end they were grateful to the goalkeeping of Shay Given, but the draw was fully deserved. For much of the game United's football was sluggish and slipshod and bore echoes of last month's 11 draw at Derby, when again their opponents' willingness to concentrate, work hard and stick to a simple plan had blunted the cutting edge of Ferguson's attack.

Few sides are able to soak up the home team's movements at Old Trafford without becoming waterlogged, but yesterday United found themselves using a sponge as a punch-bag. Before yesterday's game United had scored 30 goals in nine matches and the new and prolific partnership of Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole had produced 11 in seven. Newcastle set out not so much to tight-mark this pair as fill the space around them, no easy task given the speed of the two players and the ability of each to shake off defenders with sudden changes of direction.

The two Newcastle centrebacks, Nikolaos Dabizas and the relatively inexperienced Aaron Hughes, came out of the afternoon with considerable credit for their refusal to be panicked into errors. Dietmar Hamann, recently returned from injury, and David Batty brought a stability to Gullit's midfield which denied Roy Keane and Paul Scholes their usual opportunities to link up with the strikers.

United are seldom pressed back over the halfway line in any game, let alone at home, and it was unusual to see Ferguson's players denied so much possession between the penalty areas. As a result David Beckham, Jesper Blomqvist and the full-backs Wes Brown and Denis Irwin did not have their usual influence on the flanks.

Ferguson felt his side had given a flat performance but gave Newcastle full credit for their approach to the match. "They were terrific," he said. "They forced us on to the back foot all the time, harassed us and pressurised the man in possession very well. For a team that's struggling a bit they played with a lot of confidence."

Eight minutes before half-time Newcastle appeared to be denied a penalty for the second successive weekend. Alan Shearer flicked on to find Paul Dalglish clear, Dalglish went down under Irwin's challenge - but play went on.

Their best scoring chance in open play came three minutes after half-time. Brown, under pressure from Shearer on the right, passed back blind to leave Dalglish with Peter Schmeichel to beat. Fortunately for United the son has yet to acquire his father Kenny's scoring instincts and Schmeichel was able to block.

Until the last half-hour United had snapped and harried around the crowded areas near Newcastle's goal without achieving the sort of clear-cut opportunities Old Trafford has come to expect from its teams. Then Ferguson replaced Brown with Ronny Johnsen and moved Beckham inside, a switch that should have borne fruit in the 64th minute when Gary Neville's angled pass released Beckham through the middle only for him to shoot wide.

Manchester United: Schmeichel, Neville, Irwin, Stam, Beckham, Cole, Blomqvist (Solskjaer 88), Keane, Scholes, Yorke, Brown (Johnsen 58), Johnsen (Butt 83). Subs Not Used: Cruyff, Van Der Gouw. Booked: Stam, Blomqvist, Beckham.

Newcastle: Given, Griffin, Hughes, Charvet, Dabizas, Hamann (Speed 66), Batty, Glass, Shearer, Georgiadis, Dalglish. Subs Not Used: Harper, Pearce, Solano, Barton. Booked: Dabizas, Shearer, Charvet. Att: 55,174.

Referee: S Dunn (Bristol).