Typical. You wait 11 months for consecutive Premier League wins and then a third comes along at once.
Despite a magnificent late wobble that threatened to become catastrophically funny, Manchester United were full value for a thumpingly good fun 4-2 home win against a Brighton side that has been a thorn in their side on more than one recent occasion.
And it does leave everyone now having to consider all manner of awkward questions.
Are Manchester United, in fact, quite good? We’re not quite willing to say that just yet, but we’re far less certain of it all than we were in the giddy before times of about two weeks ago.
The lingering doubts could be seen in the minutes directly after Danny Welbeck’s free-kick reduced the deficit to 3-1. It wasn’t quite panic, but it wasn’t as dignified as it should have been to what should still have been no more than a relatively minor setback in the closing stages of a game United had taken full command of up to that point.
Brighton had started the game positively enough, but from about 10 minutes through to the third goal just after the hour, United were as good as we can remember seeing them in the Premier League under Ruben Amorim.
And the key to it all was in the shape of two summer signings. Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo have not exactly come into a dressing room full of the sort of confidence and swagger that could help new signings assimilate quickly and easily, but there were so many encouraging signs here.
Cunha was already making a more significant contribution than we’d seen even before his opening goal, which was expertly taken, a perfect first touch teeing him up to arc a shot inside the far post in a mockery-making of his long run without a goal.
Mbeumo was just as influential on the other side, and it was beguilingly possible to see how this might be a sustained route to something actually impressive, with danger and menace and genuine goal threat coming from wide attackers instead of overworked wing-backs.
The freedom for them to operate in that way came from a midfield solidity that has also been lacking in Amorim’s system that asks so much. Casemiro’s resurgence is perhaps the most unlikely element of all in this United resurgence.
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And yet the underlying frailty of United was also there. The Brighton goal wasn’t even what started it, but rather Amorim’s response to the third goal and his clear belief that the contest was over.
In the space of five minutes he removed Luke Shaw, Casemiro and Amad Diallo, and all the old vulnerabilities of this system returned. Bruno Fernandes and Kobbie Mainoo was too flaky a midfield even for this relatively straightforward task, and suddenly one pass from Brighton substitute Tom Watson was able to take them and United’s defence out of the game almost entirely.
Brighton were probably lucky to be awarded the free-kick from which Welbeck would set the nerves jangling, but the ease with which the Seagulls were now able to find a route through United was jarring. And Brighton would point, with some justification, to a foul by Shaw in the build-up to United’s third anyway.
Amorim was forced into further changes to bring back that lost control, but the sight of seven minutes on the injury-time board prompted such visible distress from United’s manager and audible concern among the fans that you were reminded again of just how much this most successful of clubs have got out of the simple habit of just winning football matches in relatively stress-free fashion.
Brighton’s second goal set up all manner of hilarious possibilities, but here again United deserve credit. Because from the second goal, United saw things out without further alarm before Mbeumo sealed the deal for a second time after a Bruno Fernandes dummy that really ought to be credited as an assist.
Perhaps the tension of those last 15 minutes is no bad thing now that no tangible harm has been done beyond a few minutes being more nervy than was entirely necessary.
There will be stopping the narrative around United now anyway. Over-the-top discussion of how bad they are will give way to over-the-top discussion of how good. They are at least briefly fourth after this and some people may even suggest with straight faces they can remain there.
What United do have, though, which has been so lacking for so long is a clear potential path to being half-decent over an extended period of time. The efforts of Cunha and Mbeumo offer a glimpse of something repeatable.
In the short term, there is absolutely every chance for this resurgence to continue. It’s Nottingham Forest next week; victory there and suddenly it’s a trip to Spurs, who are horrible at home, with that fella’s five-match-winning-streak haircut on the line. It’s absolutely no exaggeration to say that would then become a far bigger game than the Europa League final.
But sailing as close as United briefly did to banter calamity should remind everyone here that this current run is very encouraging and enormously welcome and really might be a sign of something tangible. But it still might not be that, and just the response alone to the ‘seven minutes’ showed the wounds of the last year are still raw and will take time to heal.