The unspoken fear – what if Rooney gets injured?

HYPED-UP to the max in advance – thoroughly sated in the afterglow. If this season produces another 100-hour spell like last week, I’d be utterly amazed. Such irony that we witnessed so much that was pure United, whilst in the background you feel you can see the club’s very edifices crumbling.

Rooney’s last-minute winner against City was not only an ecstatic moment per se, it is already becoming regarded as, potentially, one of those key shifts we love to reminisce over – like Brucey’s header at Easter ‘93, or Hughesy’s semi volley at Wembley ‘94. They’re the moments that definitively mark an end to a dodgy period, and launch a scintillating golden run, strikes that seem to set aflame something within for the whole club.

You saw the result at the Emirates: a team that had staggered unconvincingly throughout autumn and the festive period suddenly oozed confidence and class, and combined flair with power in the approved United manner.