The woodwork rattled four times. Three shots were cleared off the line. Thirty four attempts fired into the Manchester night, eleven finding the target, yet only three piercing the net. In a sport increasingly obsessed with expected goals metrics, this is the statistical equivalent of a cardiac patient ignoring chest pains. Manchester United's comeback from 3 0 down to draw 3 3 with Tottenham carries the superficial glint of resilience, but peel back the celebratory veneer and you find a chronic condition that goes far beyond two teams splitting points.

Start with United, a club that spent the summer parading their renewed commitment to women's football while allocating transfer funds comparable to a men's team reserve goalkeeper signing. Marc Skinner's side managed 26 shots by the 70th minute yet trailed 3 0, a clinical dissection of their false identity as contenders. Hitting the crossbar isn't misfortune, it's failure. It's a telltale sign of technical limitations disguised as bad luck.

Meanwhile, Tottenham's gut wrenching collapse lays bare women's football's most persistent pathology. Martin Ho's side has languished as a developmental afterthought compared to United's resources. Yet they engineered a 3 0 lead through surgical heading precision and capitalizing on defensive nap time. Their unraveling wasn't a tactical failure but a conditioning collapse. Spurs don't lose leads because they don't know how to win, but because their squad depth resembles a paddling pool compared to the financial reservoirs available to United. Martha Thomas scoring against her former club? That's not poetic justice, it's a forensic audit of player retention failures baked into the system.

The uncomfortable truth buried beneath this six goal spectacle is that both teams were engaged in high level improvisation with low level infrastructure. United started a fatigued squad because their Champions League commitments strained a roster built for domestic half measures. Spurs' teen defender Toko Koga delivered multiple goalline clearances while likely earning less annually than United's catering budget for midweek fixtures. This isn't competition, it's almost inequality cosplay.

Consider the cognitive dissonance at play. Premier League clubs trumpet women's teams as proof of progress while budgeting for them like minor charitable initiatives. Broadcasters air matches but bury them behind digital paywalls and graveyard streaming slots. Commercial partners slap logos on jerseys but spend marketing dollars elsewhere. Yet when these underbaked products deliver barnburners like Sunday's match, the same power brokers point and say, See, look at this growth.

Growth would require United investing transfer fees commensurate with their champions league ambitions rather than scavenging loans and free transfers. Growth would see Spurs retaining talents like Thomas who fled for first team minutes elsewhere. Growth would require broadcast slots that don't compete with men's third tier fixtures. The 3,148 attendance figure says less about fan apathy than about scheduling neglect and facilities calibrated to minor tournament expectations.

The human cost manifests in young athletes like Toone and Rolfo, who salvaged this point with heroic execution, being asked to compensate for institutional malpractice. Rolfo's double, her first WSL goals for United, wasn't a triumph but a rebuke. How does a proven international require 13 match days to finally appear on the scoresheet? The answer lies in tactical structures that prioritize athleticism over creativity, born from managers working with rosters two injuries away from catastrophe.

Meanwhile, the media chorus crowed about what this game means for the sport's entertainment value. Nonsense. Entertainment value has never been women's football's problem. The problem is that matches like this one are framed as inspirational underdog stories rather than evidence that properly resourced competition could elevate everything. Spurs could have made a statement about league parity. United could have proven their elite mentality. Instead, both confirmed their middle class angst.

The WSL's winter break allows this draw to marinate as either an inspirational fightback or a damning expose, depending on your tolerance for corporate platitudes. Marc Skinner called the response character building. Martin Ho praised his team's first hour execution. Both missed the point entirely. Character doesn't supplement squad depth when facing Juventus in Turin three days later, where United predictably fell 2 0. Execution without infrastructure creates YouTube highlights, not sustained excellence.

On days like Sunday, women's football resembles a patient refusing diagnostic tests while doctors celebrate the fever breaking. The woodwork clangs, goalkeepers spill crosses, and drama masks decay. United and Spurs delivered theater, but theater doesn't build training facilities it doesn't create viable career paths for teenagers like Koga and it certainly doesn't force boardrooms to open checkbooks. Those 34 shots weren't promise, they were a fool's errand.

Until clubs treat their women's sides as professional entities rather than PR accessories, matches this wild will remain symptoms rather than solutions. Manchester United's comeback wasn't inspiring. It was a desperate gasp from a patient that needs more than an adrenaline shot to survive the modern game's demands.