It may not have looked, felt or smelled like it, but this was a good result for Manchester United.

It wasn't a performance or an outcome to mask problems or deficiencies that run right through Michael Carrick's squad but in terms of an outcome it was about par.

For this is where United are right now. Anything that isn't a defeat – especially away from home – to a team with ideas and ambition and a good coach represents a decent day out. This, frankly, is how far they have fallen.

Carrick's team took the lead in the first half and had the better of it for a while. But then they lost control of things to the extent that it took them half an hour to have another shot. By then Leeds had equalised and taken a grip of the game.

In fact, by the end, Daniel Farke's energetic and likeable team had mustered 62 per cent of the possession and this is one of the reasons that the other United – the one from along the M62 – are stuck in such a rut. They simply cannot control games.

They have some good players and Bryan Mbeumo is one of them. He scored in the 35th minute. But in the centre of the field where tempo and rhythm are set and territory is won, United are weak.

Here, with Carrick betraying the look of the team sheet by deploying what looked like a back three, it was new signings Andrey Santos and Carlos Baleba who were given the job of securing ball and position. They were okay but that was all they were.

Over time, Leeds won that battle and as the game wore on, it was they who had the loftier ambitions. It was they who sensed a win and Carrick's players who were looking to get out of town with what they had.

They were a little bit all over the place by the end. Three promising counters in the space of five minutes, for example, were halted by utterly needless and brainless offsides.

But United survived and some of the noise around Carrick's position will quieten between now and Wednesday's Champions League game in Como. The pattern seems once again set now, however.

We are seven games in to the new Premier League season and United have won just once – against Ipswich at home.

Here Carrick's formation had a look of Ruben Amorim's back five about it. It was inflexibility – not to mention poor results – that got Amorim the sack last season but at least Carrick appeared to be trying something different.

Diogo Dalot and Amad Diallo appeared to be playing as wing-backs in a line-up that saw United start without a clear centre forward. Youri Tielemans, Bruno Fernandes and Mbeumo were the front three with Fernandes more often than not occupying the central position. After all the fuss of the week, Lisandro Martinez was in the team but only until half-time, after which the Argentinean failed to appear.

Arguably, United's problems have not been about tactics and formations but about application. Here, against an upwardly mobile Leeds team, Carrick's team seemed for a while to have more about them than they showed in drawing against ten-man Tottenham eight days earlier.

They were more compact but also more energetic and it ensured they initially competed with the home team on the metrics that really mattered. Sadly for United, it wasn't to last. Leeds were honest and spirited but lacked consistent tempo in the first half. They created sporadic half chances but nothing that sufficiently engaged the home crowd. Indeed Elland Road was rather quiet at times and that told part of the early story.

Mbeumo's opening goal didn't arrive until the 35th minute. Up until that point the game had been scrappy and occasionally required the vigilance of referee Darren England.

Leeds captain Ethan Ampadu should have been booked for an early stamp – accidental or not – on Mbeumo while Fernandes was indeed cautioned for a late challenge on Tarik Muharemovic. That offence came after Fernandes applied a heavy touch to the through pass and was perhaps indicative of his recent poor form. Prior to that, the United captain had taken a free-kick from a good position on the far side and delivered it straight out of play.

Leeds were occasionally progressive around this point and United keeper Senne Lammens was sharp enough to touch a header from Nico Elvedi over the bar in the 25th minute. At that stage, it stood as the only chance of the game.

United always looked as they may carry a threat when they did motor up field, though, and Mbeumo served notice of this almost immediately when he found space to meet a Tielemans cross six yards out only to head the ball six inches wide of James Trafford's left hand post.

As the visiting team grew into the game, so they settled a little. There was nothing haphazard about this performance at this point and after Trafford tore from goal to stop one dangerous attack with a slide tackle on Diallo, United returned again to take the lead.

It was Tielemans again with the cross from the right only this time it was a low one. Mbeumo was under pressure from James Justin with the Leeds defender taking a piece of his shirt. But the United forward was strong and determined and he kept enough of his balance to side foot the ball in from a few yards out.

United just about deserved their lead. They had looked just a little more clinical than their opponents. They held it until half-time – despite half chances for Calvert-Lewin and Jayden Bogle – but it took only six minutes of the second period for the game to change.

With Noussair Mazraoui replacing Martinez at half-time, the Moroccan conceded a corner in the 51st minute. When the kick arrived, however, he was beaten to it in the air by Muharemovic who headed the ball down for Calvert-Lewin to swivel and volley in.

Thereafter United were ragged. All their previous structure and composure had gone and for a period they hung on. There was nothing particularly sophisticated about Leeds' football. It involved width and crosses – not always as accurate as Farke would have liked - and high energy. But it made United look ordinary and uncomfortable. Indeed when Fernandes swivelled and drove a low shot across goal and wide in the 65th minute, it represented United's first effort on goal of note since they scored.

Leeds were not creating lots of chances, either. Just a couple of smashed shots over from Ao Tanaka and Noah Okafor and then another from Anton Stach with 18 minutes left. But the home team did have some momentum and that threatened to be precious.

As they looked to turn the game back their way, United's options from the bench were limited. Mason Mount came on for Carlos Baleba with 15 minutes left but Carrick seemed reluctant to introduce Marcus Rashford or Matheus Cunha. Maybe that was a sign that the United manager valued a point above anything else. Eventually, with six and a half minutes left, Cunha was given his chance.

It was still Leeds who finished the stronger and they could have stolen it in added time. United keeper Lammens applied a weak punch to a cross and watched Stach's shot dribble through his legs. Fortunately for Lammens – and indeed Carrick's emotional wellbeing – Mazraoui was positioned behind him to hack the ball away.