Desperate defending
When Marcus Rashford put Manchester United 2-0 up against Crystal Palace it looked like they had done what they failed to do at Selhurst Park 17 days earlier, namely kill off a game against the Eagles.
But just when it seemed United were in cruise control there was a moment of madness from Casemiro and his absence was immediately felt. Things got desperate quickly for Erik ten Hag's side.
We saw at Arsenal how United struggled without their world-class defensive midfielder and against Palace they fell apart without him, while also being a man down. Suddenly Palace were all over them, buoyed by Jeffrey Schlupp getting a goal with plenty of time to play.
READ MORE: United player ratings vs Crystal Palace
There were shades of the game against West Ham back in October, when United had to defend desperately to hold on to a narrow lead, and again they were roared on by the Old Trafford crowd.
It wasn't pretty at times and Palace wasted some very promising opportunities, but the win was all that mattered. It was a worrying sign of what is to come without Casemiro, however.
Casemiro's bete noire
Talking of which, he won't want to revisit his two games against Crystal Palace this season again. Casemiro was booked at Selhurst Park and earned a suspension for the huge game against Arsenal and has now been sent off and will earn a three-game ban.
The Brazilian will miss the back-to-back games against Leeds and the visit of Leicester City and while those fixtures aren't disastrous, the timing really is. It means United are down to three senior central midfielders for those three games, in Fred, Marcel Sabitzer and Bruno Fernandes.
When Andre Marriner got his red card some United fans cheered, presuming a Palace player was going to be sent-off for an offence in what was a heated brawl in the far corner of the stadium. But TV replays showed Casemiro putting his hands on the throat of Will Hughes and he couldn't really have any complaints.
It was the biggest mistake of Casemiro's United career to date and an unnecessary loss of control in a game where his team were cruising. He will hope it doesn't cost them in the next three Premier League games.
Fernandes finds form
There were a few words between Rashford and Fernandes before United's early penalty and it's not always been clear who is the regular taker this season.
Rashford took United's last penalty, in the FA Cup win against Everton, even though Fernandes was on the pitch at the time and that followed a debate between the two. At that stage, Rashford was the ultimate man in form, but this time Fernandes was reluctant to hand over the ball and you can see why.
Rashford is still firing on all cylinders but in recent weeks the Portuguese attacking midfielder has begun to up his own game and he's now playing as well as at any stage of his United career. In his last seven games he now has four goals and two assists.
He's starting to produce the kind of numbers he did in his first 18 months under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer but he's doing it while looking like a much more complete midfielder. Part of this is simply development with age. At 28 he is now at the peak of his powers.
But Ten Hag has also wanted more out of him and he is now better than ever at picking those moments to look for the high-risk balls and when to keep possession.
The return of the goals and assists are a welcome bonus on top of that. Fernandes now has 103 goal involvements in 158 games for the club, but he's starting to produce them as well as dictating play for Ten Hag's team.
A predictable selection
For perhaps the first time in living memory three of the MEN's United writers picked the same team in the pre-match preview for this game and had we known about Anthony Martial's injury (see below) we'd all have been right.
This felt like a team that picked itself, despite a desire from some supporters to see Sabitzer thrown straight in, and so it proved. On Wednesday it felt like Ten Hag's options were greater than they had been for a while, but there is also clarity of his strongest XI at the moment.
It will be interesting to see how February pans out, given United play eight games in the shortest month of the year, as well as an FA Cup fixture on March 1. This group of players can't play every one of those games, when it includes back-to-back matches against Leeds this week, a double-header against Barcelona and a cup final.
Rest and rotation are going to be a necessity during the month and how Ten Hag goes about that will be fascinating to see when he has clearly settled on his strongest XI at the moment.
Martial's fitness
After a goalscoring half-hour cameo on Wednesday night it felt like this was the day Martial would return to the United starting XI, but when the players arrived at Old Trafford at around midday the Frenchman was conspicuous by his absence.
After the team news was confirmed Ten Hag said the striker had suffered a "setback", but this is now the fifth different absence to keep him out of the team this season and it's still only the first week of February. He's been unavailable for 20 of United's 33 games despite never being out for more than six games with one particular injury.
It's clearly an unsustainable situation for the club when Martial wears the No. 9 shirt and is supposed to be the leading striker this season. His latest absence was met with a weary shrug of the shoulders from supporters who are used to seeing him in and out of the team.
United need a striker this summer but it's becoming clear that one way to fund that purchase might be to try and find a buyer for an unreliable Martial.
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