It’s very unlikely Manchester United’s remarkable powers of recovery will make any difference to the outcome of this season’s Premier League title race, but they have taken it further than many of us expected.
Of course, it would require a monumental collapse by Manchester City to throw it away now, not to mention United having to beat Leicester and Liverpool at Old Trafford in the space of 50 hours to stand even the remotest chance of taking the contest beyond the end of this week.
For 45 minutes at Villa Park, though, it looked as though Pep Guardiola and his players were going to crack open the champagne on Sunday night.