The real truth about most football fans is that they are malleable. Give them something to cheer up in the field and they will go home happy and appear again next time. The power of real sport is still absolute.
So this, in the end and against wind and tide, was a much better day for Manchester United. It was an afternoon that began with the protest and ended with a return of honor of Ruben Amorim players.
The 75,000 United followers who were here stayed until the end and went home talking less about the Glazers and Sir Jim Ratcliffe and more about his captain Bruno Fernandes and the young central defender Ayden Heaven.
Fans of other clubs can make fun. A return of honor after a draw at home against Arsenal? Yes, it does a little of a complex below.
But these are difficult moments in Old Trafford and if Amorim players want to thank their followers for staying with them on a day when most had written them before the beginning, then it does not seem to be very bad with that.
United supporters lead their hate to their enamels deeply in their hearts. Of course they do. Americans have rinsed a great soccer club for almost two decades.
On a day of protest against the property, Man United fans had something to encourage
Bruno Fernandes gave the Red Devils the advantage with a free kick just before halftime
Declan Rice scored the arsenal tie with a brilliant blow in the second half
And his suspicion of Ratcliffe is also well founded. It has not been a good opening entrance of Ratcliffe and his friends of INEOS. These are feelings that will last.
However, football is what matters. Soccer fans will support all kinds if the team wins.
Here, against an Arsenal team now caught in a slow and painful process of retiring from the race for the title of the Premier League, United showed at least one heart that still beats, although sometimes, sometimes weak sometimes, in the local costume.
United is still a team of moments and that is rarely healthy. Here a fabulous free kick from Fernandes at the end of a first half in which they had barely been competitive gave them an advantage that they absolutely did not deserve, but it was a goal that served to push them to a higher set of gears that we rarely see of them in recent days and weeks.
They did not win and that was probably correct. Arsenal did enough to get out of the city with intact pride.
But United played with an energy and speed that seems too often beyond them and if Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya did not produce his best exhibition of the season, the local team would have won this game without a doubt.
United can't control games and is a lasting problem. They are not good enough. They don't have players. Until the club's recruitment department solves that problem, they will not return to the four best places in the Premier League.
Nottingham Forest has won a tendency to win games without the ball, but the team of Nuno Espirito Santo is the atypical values and that will never be an acceptable path for a club like United.
The Red Devils went up to 14th with the point they claimed from their clash with Arsenal
Arsenal left with his pride in TACT, but now they are 15 points from Liverpool fugitive leaders after falling points for a third consecutive game of the Premier League
United, who is training them, must learn what it is to master possession and territory. They must learn once again what it is to slowly build pressure. Until they do, they will remain trapped in the mud.
Meanwhile, energy and rapid counters and intelligent final crossings and finals should serve them and during a second half of football completely entertaining, they threatened here.
The roar of anticipation, optimism and agony when he somehow kept out Fernandes' late shot and recovered to comb the rotating ball of the goals line was like some of the years of glory.
All eyes turned to the referee Anthony Taylor, who, in turn, focused on his watch, waiting for the revealing vibration that would indicate a ball on the other side of the goal line. Agonizing, never arrived.
That would have been the highlight of the season, regardless of the fact that he would have pushed the title of the League closer and closer to his great enemies in Anfield. That rivalry remains as real as ever.
Liverpool is about to attract the total of 20 National Titles of United. But winning football matches is what really counts and this is all that mattered to United already his followers here.
Before the game, they marched outside Old Trafford and the framing of his message against the owners of his club was clear and raw. We have been here before.
We remember the 2010 Gold and Gold Gold Campaign and beyond. We also remember how Sir Alex Ferguson and his players danced in the field after securing his latest premier League title in 2012.
Ruben Amorim's men improved in the second half and was not worth not to score a winner
The result has probably ratified a 20th Premier League title for Liverpool rivals
It should not be the work of Amorim in the role of cracks left by ruinous property in this great soccer club, but the reality is that it is and has been so since 2005. Ferguson did it. No one else has done it.
Here, with the missing key players, there was evidence at least to show that love players at least retain interest in playing for him. It is still half of the battle at any level you handle.
Fernandes was the best Amorim player, as is the case. But Young Heaven, recently climbing from Arsenal, was a powerful presence since his former club pressed for a winner.
United is 14th. West Ham will take them to 15 if they beat Newcastle on Monday. They are where they deserve to be. However, they still have a pulse. It is something.