Is this turning point that boss so badly needs?

Victory buys Ten Hag breathing space, but now United must capitalise on it

- TYRONE MARSHALL

THE beauty of a sliding doors moment is that you never quite know what an alternative reality had in store for you. Things might have been different, they might even have been better, but it's all guesswork.

That doesn't stop us from thinking about the what-ifs. From wasting time wondering about a vision we will never get to see. Erik ten Hag couldn't help himself last season, thinking aloud in May about how different Manchester United's season might have been had a decision been different back in September.

These little moments can become an obsession. For Ten Hag, it was United's late defeat at Arsenal in their fourth Premier League game of the season. What started simply as a moment of frustration morphed into something more substantial as the season came off the rails.

That's why he was still talking about it seven months later. In Ten Hag's version, United were denied an 87thminute penalty at 1-1, then scored through Alejandro Garnacho only to see the goal disallowed for the tightest of VAR offside calls. Arsenal went up the other end and won the game themselves, with a goal United felt should also have been ruled out.