The title race was thrown wide open as a jittery Arsenal stunned United at home

“That’s part of the requirements, the expectation that we want to win… it’s how we respond to that and I’m very confident because I know those players in that dressing room and how much they want it, that we will respond immediately.”

The result is somewhat elusive given how this clash began: from the start, Arsenal were absolutely dominant in every aspect, stifling United in their defensive half for virtually the entire first 10 minutes. After 15 minutes, the home fans complained about the loss of time. They finally conjured their first shot on target three minutes later, with Martin Zubimendi forcing a superb save from Senne Lemmens with a header from Declan Rice’s free-kick.

Just before half an hour they opened the scoring with a very smart goal. Bukayo Saka collected Patrick Dorg’s beautiful header into the box. With two defenders in front of him, Saka kicked the ball between them to Odegaard, who nudged it and then took down the standing leg of Lisandro Martinez.

At the time it felt like asking Arsenal by how much.

Then the atmosphere inexplicably changed. Confidence gave way to anxiety, then anger.

Arsenal invited United back into the game and the visitors gratefully accepted the invitation. Moments of even the slightest imperfection were greeted with groans from the crowd, creating a vicious circle that threatened to engulf them. Suddenly Carrick’s men were rushing forward and often.

An even warmer hospitality was to come: an equalizer essentially gift-wrapped by Zubimendi, congratulations and all. His errant back pass to the goalkeeper was intercepted by Bryan Mbuemo, who held his nerve and rounded David Raya to make it 1-1.

As everyone settled back into their seats for the second half, United struck again, Dorgu and Bruno Fernandes combining before the former fired off the crossbar from the top of the box. VAR was looking for a reason to take it away from him but Dorgu smartly kept his hands locked to avoid a possible handball when the ball bounced into his path. 2-1 on party crashers.

Arsenal breathed, puffed and finally found a second in the 84th minute from – shock, horror – a corner kick that Mikel Merino bundled in amid a jumble of bodies. That gave them a surge of late momentum.

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And then, just like when they scored in the first half, they collapsed: out of nowhere, Cunha curled in a brilliant shot from 30 yards that took everyone by surprise.

After seven wasted minutes of stoppage time, a stunned silence fell over north London and the United fans in the corner went wild. Beating City in the Manchester derby last week was one thing; however, this was just as incredible as what followed.

“Listen, I’m not going to get carried away,” Carrick said.

“We’ve got some bigger games ahead of us because every next game is a bigger game. Two massive games … there’s a lot of emotion, a lot of energy and a lot of confidence to take from it. But being humble and understanding how we got these results is really important moving forward.”