For a good 80 minutes or so, Manchester United were facing the potential ignominy of a fourth consecutive home defeat.
The first television sets had only been on sale a few years the last time that happened at Old Trafford. The year was 1930, United were managed by a former referee called Herbert Bamlett and Ramsay MacDonald was prime minister. So that was not a record United will have much fancied matching.

By the time the clock hit minute 82, Southampton could and should have been out of sight. Only a plethora of missed chances and a stupendous display from Andre Onana in the United goal had kept the Premier League’s basement club at bay for the first hour of a game in which Ruben Amorim’s side were a distant second all over the pitch.

And then Amad Diallo stepped forward to produce another of his virtuoso rescue acts and doubtless leave United’s co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, watching from the directors’ box, breathing a huge sigh of relief. United’s match-winner against Manchester City last month, scorer of the goal that earned a deserved draw at Liverpool 10 days earlier and now the plunderer of a stunning 12-minute hat-trick that dug his team out of a big hole.

A virtual outcast under Erik ten Hag, the young Ivory Coast forward has been given a new lease of life under Amorim and he is repaying that faith in bucketloads. Some of United’s contract awards down the years have left much to be desired, but the new five-year deal the 22-year-old signed last week was most deserved.

What a revelation he has been. United’s season has been a story of timidity, toothlessness and submissiveness, traits that were all on show during a spineless first-half showing against Southampton that was just about as bad as anything they have delivered this term. Amad is the opposite of all of those things: ruthless in front of goal, brave, relentless, urgent and with a flair for making things happen.

In truth, he was not the only reason United won this game. After Onana had kept United in it, Amorim’s decision to jettison Manuel Ugarte, whose own goal late in the first period had given Southampton the lead from a corner, and Rasmus Hojlund and bring on Joshua Zirkzee and Toby Collyer brought an immediate uplift. That and Amorim’s decision to move to a nominal back four and push Amad further forward from his starting position as a right wing-back.

Zirkzee, clearly buoyed by his decisive penalty in the FA Cup shoot-out victory over Arsenal on Sunday, had his best 30 minutes in a red shirt. His arrival gave United some much-needed impetus and it was fitting that he set up Amad for the equaliser, picking up the ball from Bruno Fernandes and driving at Southampton’s defence. Amad’s initial shot was blocked before he dispatched the rebound.

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