David de Gea was Manchester United’s best player here and it would be easy to say he was the reason they somehow won. But it is not as simple as that.
De Gea made some important saves in the first half at a time when United were again presenting a passable impression of a bunch of men who had never met each other before.
Had Brentford — in particular Mathias Jensen — scored a couple of times, they may have won and United’s interim manager Ralf Rangnick would today be facing yet another inquest.
However it was not just goalkeeping that set these teams apart by the end of the night.