Maitland-Niles’ last Premier League goal was in 2018, and his next one rescued Everton in the 96th minute

Bryan Mbeumo put Manchester United ahead two minutes into the second half. Benjamin Sesko put them ahead again in the 88th minute. Neither lead lasted, and the second one survived eight minutes, because Ainsley Maitland-Niles picked the ball up outside the box in the sixth minute of stoppage time and curled it into the top corner on his Everton debut.

Everton 2, Manchester United 2, at the Hill Dickinson Stadium on Sunday. United will spend the week working out how they turned six points into one.

United had the better hour

For an hour this was comfortable for the visitors. Bruno Fernandes hit the crossbar early, United carried the ball in the areas that mattered, and Mbeumo’s finish two minutes after the restart was the sort of goal that usually settles a game against a side this short of attackers.

What United did not do was add to it. They were wasteful in the final third, and they dropped deeper as the game went on, which is a habit that has already cost them this season. Everton had no obvious way through and looked like they might not need one, because United kept inviting them forward.

Seven minutes and six added ones

Hayden Hackney dug the ball out of a crowd of bodies in the 83rd minute and rolled it to Tyrique George on the right of the box. George is 20, he had been Everton’s liveliest player all afternoon, and from an angle that gave him almost nothing he hammered the shot high past the goalkeeper.

Sesko restored the lead five minutes later, which should have ended the argument. It did not, because United could not keep the ball for the six added minutes. James Garner had limped off earlier and Maitland-Niles had replaced him. The substitute got the ball 25 yards out, took a touch, and bent it into the top corner.

Everton signed Maitland-Niles permanently from Lyon on 1 September, a three-year deal with an option for a fourth, three days after his 29th birthday. His only previous Premier League goal came for Arsenal in a 5-1 defeat at Anfield in December 2018. Nearly eight years later, on his first appearance for a new club, he got his second.

Everton are unbeaten, United are 11th

The table reads better for the home side. Everton are eighth on five points from three games, one win and two draws, still unbeaten. United are 11th on four, after losing 2-0 at newly promoted Hull on the opening weekend and beating Ipswich 5-2 with a Bruno Fernandes hat-trick.

United have scored seven in three games and conceded six. That is a side that has to score three to feel safe, and on Sunday they scored two.

Everton’s summer explains a lot of what they are. Iliman Ndiaye left for Manchester City for a reported 65 million pounds on deadline day, and the striker who was supposed to replace that output, Monaco’s Folarin Balogun, never signed after a medical at Finch Farm. David Moyes said afterwards that he was disappointed Everton had not done more business. What he has instead is a squad that keeps finding late goals from unlikely places.

Nobody will remember this as a good Manchester United performance, and that is the point. It was a good hour, then a familiar collapse.

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