Ruben Amorim had set the bar low, as he so often has sought to do during his tumultuous four months in charge at Manchester United. “We just need to survive,” the manager said as he assessed what used to be the must-see fixture of the English calendar, wary of a selection crisis that would deprive him of 11 players.

United did more than that and they were so close to cutting through the gloom at Old Trafford, all of the multi-layered problems, with an overdue victory. “Well, at least we’ve got Bruno,” read the cover of the United We Stand fanzine which was on sale outside the stadium. Never a truer sentence.

Bruno Fernandes had put United in front at the end of a dull first half from a free-kick and after Declan Rice had equalised for an Arsenal team that flattered to deceive, it was the United captain who almost nicked it at the very end.

United had turned the screw, belatedly casting off the shackles and when Alejandro Garnacho and Noussair Mazraoui combined up the right, getting the ball into the box, there was Fernandes. His shot was half-stopped by David Raya and yet the ball looped up and bounced towards the goal. Raya, at fault for the Arsenal concession, got back to claw to safety. It was dramatic stuff and not his first important save.

It was Mikel Arteta’s 200th Premier League game and yet it was not one to remember for him. Arsenal’s title challenge is long since over – their attention is more on the Champions League – and they did not do enough to punish a United team that has flailed so much in recent times.

The occasion was framed by the pre-match protest against the Glazer family, against the drain, decay and absenteeism of their ownership. There were a few thousand United diehards who marched from the Tollgate pub to the stadium, flares lighting the scene, so much frustration and anger. Will the Glazers get the message which was articulated so industrially? Not a chance.

Arsenal were buoyed by the extraordinary 7-1 Champions League win at PSV Eindhoven last Tuesday. It snapped a run of back-to-back scoring blanks for them and so, as somebody said to Arteta on Friday, it made them 007. “Now boom,” the manager said, pretending to fire a gun. The licence to thrill was not there.

United’s approach was coloured by caution at the outset. They sank into a 5-4-1 and they invited Arsenal on. Containment was the plan; leaving no spaces between the lines. And if it meant getting precious few men forward when they countered then so be it.

Arsenal hogged the ball and they tried to pick the lock, Martin Ødegaard buzzing from the No 10 position. When he made an early burst into the box, the ball broke for Mikel Merino, who stepped inside and blasted just past the post.

The first anti-Glazers chant inside the stadium was heard just before kick-off and there were intermittent exhortations for people to stand up and show their opposition to them. There were plenty of takers. The first half meandered, defined by André Onana’s erratic distribution, United’s overly predictable play-out-from-the-back patterns and some solid last-line defending from them, too.

Arsenal laboured in the final third, missing passes, the timing of too many runs off. Leandro Trossard fizzed just wide after a nice pass from Gabriel Magalhães but it was an isolated incision. And then United blew the game open. It was a sucker punch, Garnacho driving up the inside right and being tripped by Trossard outside the box, to the right of centre.

Arsenal’s defensive wall looked quite a way back and what about Raya’s positioning? It was strange to see him leave a big space to his left-hand post, which was clearly where Fernandes was going to aim. Although Raya shuffled across when Fernandes stepped forward, he was still to the right of centre. Fernandes’s kick was hardly in the corner. Raya flew across and was nowhere near it.

United brought more intent after the interval, more drive. Joshua Zirkzee, playing as the No 9 after Amorim dropped Rasmus Højlund, finally got a hold-up move to work, getting Diogo Dalot away and Mazraoui met the cross with a volley. Raya saved brilliantly with his legs. The goalkeeper had to work again when Zirkzee flicked a deflected Garnacho cross with his trailing leg. Raya’s reflexes were on point.

Ødegaard went close shortly after the restart, Onana helping his drive over the crossbar but when the Arsenal captain hit the wall from a well-placed free-kick on 70 minutes, it was starting to look bleak for his team. The feeling only hardened when Ayden Heaven, on for the injured Lenny Yoro to face his old club, looked to get away with a handball inside the area.

Step forward Rice. It was a run and a cut-back up the right from Jurrien Timber and with no United defender getting out to him, Rice bent a superb shot into the far corner.

It was the prompt for a frenetic finale. Gabriel Martinelli, back as a substitute after injury, worked Onana, who also spilled a late Ødegaard effort. But it was United who looked the likelier scorers of the next goal. If only Højlund, who came on for Zirkzee, had been quicker when Casemiro played him in; Rice got back to make a saving challenge. The Dane was also denied by a robust Gabriel challenge. And then, at the bitter end, there was Fernandes. Raya’s intervention was decisive.