Prayers, presumably, were being offered in the mock Tudor mansions of Cobham and Esher, the multimillionaire players of Chelsea reduced to nervous, desperate wrecks as they pleaded for divine intervention. The heroics of Brad Friedel had offered them hope, but, as Manchester United set up camp in the Blackburn Rovers penalty area in the final 15 minutes on Saturday evening, it needed something more. Would United score? As their rivals would grudgingly concede, they always bloody score.

There was an inevitability about United’s equalising goal with two minutes remaining at Ewood Park. There was also a growing sense of familiarity about the identity of the goalscorer, with Carlos Tévez continuing his healthy habit of scoring when the need is greatest. The Argentina forward is not prolific, but of his past five goals in all competitions, three have been equalisers in the dying moments of matches away to Tottenham Hotspur, Lyons and now Blackburn. Throw in a winning goal against Liverpool at Anfield in December and it is easy to see why Tévez is becoming such a popular figure at Old Trafford.

This, though, was not a story of personal triumph. It was one of collective will and the never-say-die spirit that flows through this United team. Having found Friedel, the Blackburn goalkeeper, in inspired form and after having three reasonable penalty appeals rejected by Rob Styles, the referee, United’s players would have been forgiven – by neutrals, if not by their manager, Sir Alex Ferguson – for growing resigned to their fate. As it was, though, the succession of setbacks seemed to make them stronger.

For the final 15 minutes on Saturday they laid siege to the Blackburn goal and it was inevitable, not merely with hindsight, that they would get the goal that left them as overwhelming favourites to retain the league title, Tévez stretching to head home unmarked from six yards after Paul Scholes flicked on Nani’s inswinging corner.

There is still room for a twist or two along the way – and, given United’s penchant for doing things the hard way and the small matter of playing Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final three days either side of their match away to Chelsea on Saturday – one would not bet against a slip-up at Stamford Bridge. But United will surely not be denied in the final reckoning. They have trailed in each of their past three league matches – away to Middlesbrough, at home to Arsenal and away to Blackburn – and have somehow ended up with a haul of five points. By their standards, it has been a wobble, but it has not been the stumble and fall that Chelsea could reasonably have hoped for.

As an alumnus of Old Trafford, Mark Hughes, the Blackburn manager, was far from surprised at seeing his team denied what would have been a satisfying victory. “If you get the opportunity to play for Manchester United, you have to have special talents and one of those is that you have to be a winner and not accept defeat,” Hughes said. “One of those demands is to keep on going to the end. They don’t ever accept they’re beaten. And when they are, they don’t say they’ve lost. They say they ran out of time.”

That they came so close to running out of time on Saturday was a credit to Blackburn. Hughes’s team had taken the lead in the 21st minute, when uncharacteristically slapdash defending from Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic from a long throw-in allowed Roque Santa Cruz to score his twentieth goal of the season. Santa Cruz had been deployed on the right wing to “isolate Patrice Evra”, as Hughes put it, and the tactic worked, with Jason Roberts proving a handful in attack. Farther back Christopher Samba and Ryan Nelsen were typically obdurate and Stephen Warnock gave Cristiano Ronaldo one of his toughest matches of the season. And then there was Friedel, who saved superbly from Wayne Rooney and John O’Shea as the clock ticked down.

By this stage, Rooney was in clear pain, the legacy of a blow to his left hip in a tussle with Nelsen late in the second half. The forward seemed to be compounding his injury with every motion, once by remonstrating angrily with Styles for failing to award a penalty for Johann Vogel’s challenge on Ronaldo. Rooney, like United, does not give up, though. He refused to be substituted until his team had drawn level, which of course they did through Tévez. At the point he left the pitch he was secure in the knowledge that United had done enough and that this, under the circumstances, was certainly one point gained rather than two lost.

“It could be a very important goal,” Michael Carrick, the midfield player, said. “We’ve said that a few times lately, but, considering how the game went, to get the goal so late on was a real boost. You always feel you have a chance with the players we have in this team. We knew that time was ticking away, but you have to keep believing.” Ferguson declared afterwards that the refusal of United to give up represented the hallmark of champions. He was right. And one suspects that Chelsea’s players, deep down, recognised it, too.

How they rated

Blackburn Rovers (4-2-3-1): B Friedel 8 – S Reid Y 5 C Samba 7 R Nelsen 7 S Warnock 8 – B Emerton 6 J Vogel 6 – R Santa Cruz 6 D Bentley 6 M G Pedersen 6 – J Roberts 7 Substitutes: A Mokoena (for Vogel, 85min). Not used: J Brown, A Ooijer, D Dunn, B McCarthy. Next: Portsmouth (a).

Manchester United (4-2-3-1): T Kuszczak 6 – W Brown 5 R Ferdinand 6 N Vidic 5 P Evra 5 – M Carrick 7 P Scholes 6 – C Ronaldo 7 C Tévez 6 R Giggs 4 – W Rooney Y 7 Substitutes: Nani 7 (for Giggs, 46min), J O’Shea (for Brown, 81), Park Ji Sung (for Rooney, 90). Not used: B Foster, G Piqué. Next: Chelsea (a).