It is pointless talking about springboards for Manchester United. We have been here before. Every time they think they have built one they use it to dive headfirst into the shallow end with their clothes on.
These days – during these rocky early weeks of manager Ruben Amorim – it is about avoiding calamity. About getting home with all the dressing room televisions still intact.
And here – at the end of a pulsating extra five minutes that came on top of a very ordinary preceding 90 – this is what they did.
Once again, as the 3,500 travelling Rangers fans celebrated a late equaliser, Amorim and his players stood and stared at each other as if in search of some mythical sporting code. The one that stops you from blowing your own toes off. The one that stops routine days turning into the kind that make the rest of the country turn and laugh at you.
The opponents here would probably make a living in the English Championship. They were missing eight players at the start and had two green horn teenagers on the field by the end. Young Findlay Curtis, 18, had only played for his club once previously, in the Scottish Cup against Fraserburgh, the ninth best team in the Scottish Highland League. So this was quite a step up, trying to play his part in a modern miracle at Old Trafford.
Yet with two minutes of added time gone, this is how it was for United. This is how it was until their captain Bruno Fernandes stepped up to turn it all back on its head for his team.
Bruno Fernandes’ stoppage-time winner secured three points for Man United against Rangers
The club captain drove home a Lisandro Martinez cross in the closing stages at Old Trafford
Ruben Amorim’s side are now within touching distance of an automatic place in the Europa League knockout stages
Fernandes takes a lot of criticism, largely for the way he sometimes behaves. He can appear petulant and has not always been an exemplary leader. But he is an exceptional footballer – the best his team have – and here his timing to run off a blue-shirted defender and half volley Lisandro Martinez’s chipped through-pass in to the goal at the Stretford End was perfect and his goal was enough to give his team a victory that kept another crisis from the door at least until they travel to Fulham in the Premier League on Sunday night.
That will be an altogether tougher test. Fulham are a proper football team, far superior to a Rangers side trailing Celtic by thirteen points at the top of the SPL.
But at United right now, it’s about step following step. It’s about not falling over. It is pointless Amorim and his players trying to peer down to the end of road – to their journey’s next clear staging post – as every time they do the fog seems to close in.
Here in a city bracing itself for the arrival of Friday’s storms, all seemed calm as the hour mark came and went.
Rangers had bothered United twice in the very early stages of the game. Both chances came from the home team coughing up the ball. The first was wasted by Nicolas Raskin on the back of a wretched first touch when clear while the second ended with Ridvan Yilmaz volleying a dropping ball against the raised palms of United goalkeeper Altay Bayindir.
It was all a bit classic modern United. Sloppy. But they improved to control possession and territory without ever threatening to set the place alight.
Matthijs de Ligt did have the ball in the net with a header from a corner only for the referee to spot a foul by Leny Yoro on Robin Propper that nobody else did. The goal should have stood. Rangers goalkeeper Jack Butland also saved well with his legs from Amad Diallo and touched a Martinez long ranger over with his fingers.
Without a goal at the interval, this felt pretty much as we suspected it would. A Battle of Britain without the guns. And when Butland jumped to meet a corner in the 52nd minute only to punch the ball in to his own goal, it seemed as though the game would have an appropriate moment on which to decide it.
A first-half goal from Matthijs de Ligt was ruled out following a Leny Yoro foul in the build-up
But United would get their lead following an error from Rangers goalkeeper Jack Butland
As attempted to clear a Christian Eriksen corner, the former England ‘keeper punched the ball into his own net
Butland once played nine times for England – the last time in September 2018 – and went on here to save well from Manuel Ugarte and Alejandro Garnacho as United pushed hard to seal the game. His error was a dreadful one, though. Only young United midfielder Toby Collyer was anywhere near him and he certainly wasn’t fouling the goalkeeper. Butland’s reaction – pounding the floor with his hands – told the story.
Rangers had contributed fully to the contest. This has not been an easy season for their manager Philippe Clement and some would have had him sacked by now. But his players – much as they grew tired – did not stop playing for him and at Old Trafford these days you know you always have a chance if you stay in the game.
Harry Maguire had only come on as a half-time substitute for De Lijt and had missed one chance to double United’s lead, heading wide from a free-kick at the far post when unmarked. As time wore on, United did appear a little nervous but we would not have expected their former captain to have been afflicted.
United continued to press their advantage through the second half but couldn’t extend their lead
Substitute Cyriel Dessers put Rangers back on level terms with a wonderful goal late on
But United recovered from the Nigerian international’s strike to secure victory on Thursday
Still, Maguire managed to fail under a long pass forwards from James Tavernier in the 88th minute and when Rangers substitute Cyriel Dessers applied a super first touch to control the ball, he was able to turn and half volley it across Bayindir and in to the far corner like a bullet.
It was a stunning finish, as good as any seen on this patch of green this season. Why Maguire had not been stronger only he will know but it seemed for all the world as though United had managed to spoil their own exam paper once again.
They were three minutes away from another inquest this time only for Fernandes to save them. To West London they head, stumbling blindly.