Mind games do exactly what they say on the tin. They mess with the mind. It should be left to the experts like Sir Alex Ferguson.

It should not be wheeled out ad hoc as they were by Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez last week, especially when your team is already top of the Premier League.

The purpose of mind games is to irritate and divert. Yet the only people Benitez seemed to have succeeded in distracting was his own Liverpool side whose goalless draw at Stoke might well come to be seen as a squandered opportunity in the Premier League title race.

The bottom line is that when all the talking is done, when Benitez has accused Ferguson of influencing referees and when Ferguson has branded Benitez as "ridiculous" and "disturbed," winning trophies comes down, as it always has done, to players.

It comes down to whether the players possess character, resilience and talent.

The resounding conclusion from a revealing weekend was that in all those areas United are still ahead of the rest.

Way ahead of Chelsea, whose season is not so much fraying at the seams as unravelling before our eyes.

The defensive lapses which saw them lose 3-0 at Old Trafford proved how far they have slipped from the time when Jose Mourinho made them into the most miserly team in the league.

Yet that was not the worst of it. Not by a long way. It was the way players capitulated when the game was running away from them that betrayed the problems of Luis Felipe Scolari at Stamford Bridge.

Where was Michael Ballack? Where were Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba? Where was the commitment from the strolling John Obi Mikel? The big-hitters simply failed to deliver when needed most. What was worse was that they did not appear to possess the desire to run through the brick walls which was second nature under Mourinho.

That points to an enduring malaise at Chelsea, one which has been hinted at in the dressing room and which Scolari will struggle to rectify on the training pitch.

Everything suggests Chelsea are an ageing team on the point of breaking up, a feeling which might yet be exacerbated by Wednesday's tricky away FA Cup tie at Southend.

United, by contrast, are a team who look to have caught their second wind in a season which began slowly but is now starting to purr with anticipation.

It is all about balance and no team in the Premier League has a more pleasing blend of youth and experience.

The dynamic contributions of Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo are obvious. But Dimitar Berbatov has begun to weigh in with game-winning contributions while on Sunday 35-year-old Ryan Giggs gave one of those midfield performances which mark him out as one of the Premier League's enduring greats.

United can also bring in a talented youngster such as Jonny Evans to deputise for the injured Rio Ferdinand, while Gary Neville appears to be rediscovering his old form with perfect timing.

That is what makes United stand out. Strength in depth. Character from back to front. Plus desire in bucketloads.

Liverpool have much of that too as well as the world class contributions of Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres and their yearning to land a first Premier League title still promises to make this season special.

Yet Benitez's team do not have game-winners surging from all directions.

Not like United. They do not have the capacity to overwhelm in the manner in which Ferguson's men saw off Chelsea.

It is why the title race, even with so far to run, might well have witnessed its defining moment.

Nothing to do with mind games. Everything to do with a game in which United's balanced squad strutted their superiority.