Erik ten Hag applied a desperately required change to save Manchester United from a second humiliation in four days. Losing at the interval, the Dutchman brought on Marcus Rashford then and Anthony Martial a little later and they scored the goals that turned embarrassing defeat into Group E victory.
Nothing, though, can hide the faultlines in Ten Hag’s team which are hardly news: no discernible possession-based attack patterns and a defence that is amateurish as illustrated by Karim Ansarifard’s breakaway opener.
For a while – from 33 to 53 minutes and Rashford’s equaliser – Neil Lennon’s men could dream of handing Ten Hag the type of seismic loss suffered by three of his four post-Sir Alex Ferguson predecessors.
Omonia, who had won only once in their last 26 European games before tonight, threatened to emulate Olympiakos, in 2014, who beat David Moyes’s United 2-0; MK Dons (2015) – 4-0 over Louis van Gaal’s side – and Istanbul Basaksehir, 2-1 against Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s team, two years ago.