Chelsea 3 Manchester United 3: Hernandez completes stunning fightback by Reds

Despite dominating for long periods, the champions’ Stamford Bridge league curse looked to have struck again when Jonny Evans put Daniel Sturridge’s cross into his own net, Juan Mata scored a superb goal and David Luiz’s header flew in off the shoulder of Rio Ferdinand.

But two spot-kicks, the second award questionable, were both scored by Wayne Rooney before substitute Javier Hernandez snatched a point six minutes from time.

Although it was another classic second half at Stamford Bridge, it was more dropped points for Chelsea from a winning position as they almost lost at home in the league to United for the first time in 10 years.

David De Gea, who was making his first league appearance of 2012, showed his edginess in the eighth minute when he flapped at a cross.

But it was Chelsea who were soon breathing a sigh of relief as two penalty cries from United were ignored by referee Howard Webb.

The first saw Ashley Young go down far too easily under pressure from Jose Bosingwa, who got the nod at left-back with Ashley Cole suspended.

Moments later, Danny Welbeck went down after being caught by the trailing leg of Chelsea debutant Gary Cahill.

Replays appeared to show Cahill had won the ball before catching Welbeck, but the decision only fuelled a poisonous atmosphere that included abusive chants about John Terry and Rio Ferdinand.

The football did little to lift the mood until just before the half-hour when Branislav Ivanovic just beat Welbeck to Rooney’s cross after a wonderful ball from Antonio Valencia.

Webb brandished his yellow card when Fernando Torres ran into the back of Evans, for whom insult was added to injury nine minutes before half-time when he inadvertently gave Chelsea the lead.

United failed to clear their lines and the ball broke to Sturridge, who got to the byline and fired in a cross that hit De Gea and then went in off Evans’s arm.

Sturridge’s vicious drive was repelled by De Gea before Petr Cech was finally called into meaningful action when he got fingertips on Young’s curling shot.

The Chelsea goalkeeper then produced an even better stop on Welbeck’s snapshot and Ivanovic was booked for running into Young as United finished the first half as they had begun it, on top.

The champions’ manager Sir Alex Ferguson had complained in his pre-match interview that the away dressing room was frigid enough to “hang meat in” and the visitors were certainly caught cold at the restart as the home side trebled their advantage inside five minutes.

The second goal took less than 30 seconds, Torres getting clear down the right and whipping in the perfect cross for Mata to lash straight through De Gea before the goalkeeper could even move.