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 days 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 as captain Bruno Fernandes cut short a late fight back from an injury-ravaged Rangers side that ended the night with two novice teenagers on the field.