Joshua Zirkzee, who had a hand in involving the fans following that exchange, almost created a magical moment of his own shortly after. Feeding off a deflection in the Arsenal box, he attempted a no-look, first-time flick that was as audacious as it was resourceful. Once again, Raya only just prevented it breaching his goal with an instinctive stop.
Those chances would come back to bite as we entered the final 15 minutes. Much the reverse of the first half, United had, without question, the best of the chances, but it was the Gunners who grabbed the goal. Receiving a pass on the edge of the box from Timber, Rice wasted no time in curling it with precision, hitting the inside of Onana's post as he registered the leveller.
The game opened up into an end-to-end affair following the equaliser, with fit-again substitute Gabriel Martinelli provoking a strong Onana save and Rasmus Hojlund thwarted twice in the following minutes by the visitors' defence, by fine tackles from Rice and Gabriel.
A vocal Old Trafford were willing in a winner until the very end and, in truth, the three points could have gone in either direction in stoppage time, with Onana denying a Odegaard effort, and seeing Martinelli smash the rebound off target, although he was offside in any case. Seconds later, Fernandes ran onto Mazraoui's inviting square pass but saw his attempt clawed off the line, at the second attempt, by Raya, with referee Anthony Taylor signalling the goalline technology had not been activated.
So there was to be no separating the two sides on the day – both were forced to settle for a point, following a breathless finale.