If Manchester United’s season is going to turn on anything, then surely it is the three minutes of madness at Molineux that saw the best and the worst of them on a chaotic, cathartic night.

This was a game United had bossed only to throw away. They produced one of their best performances of the season but managed to lay bare all of their flaws to concede a third goal in stoppage time. It was lamentable from Antony, tactically naive from many and poor from Andre Onana. It was a season in microcosm.

But maybe, just maybe, times are changing. For once the mistakes didn’t cost United. They got up off the canvas to throw one more haymaker, in the form of a moment of magic from Kobbie Mainoo.

Just as the 3,000 supporters in the away end were beginning to lament the soft centre of their team once again, the teenager from Stockport sent them wild. He turned away from one challenge, cut inside another, opened up a shooting angle and picked his spot. It was a quite brilliant goal from a midfielder who doesn’t turn 19 until April.

And just as Ten Hag had suggested, United had begun to look like their old selves, albeit with a few of those flaws still on display.

The Dutchman hadn’t shied away from the pressure recently. His returning stars in January were going to be like “five or six new signings” and the squad he could pick at Wolves was “probably the strongest” since he had been at the club. At a time when the United manager was under pressure, he embraced it.

Ten Hag’s job security has been getting weaker all season and he went into this trip to Molineux with United ninth in the Premier League. Defeat to an in-form Wolves would have left them 10th well past the halfway stage.

At a time when Sir Dave Brailsford is omnipresent at Carrington and Ineos are driving up standards, the spotlight on Ten Hag has been inescapable, even if his early discussions with Brailsford and Sir Jim Ratcliffe have been positive.

Sharing a vision for the future and an understanding of what is wrong is all well and good, however. Ten Hag was only ever going to strengthen his grip on the United job by getting results. A desperate season simply had to improve.

With the treatment room clearing, this felt like a jumping-off point. Day one of Ten Hag’s true audition for his own job. This morning he will feel a little more secure in the post.

“For the first time since I was the manager, we can pick a team from the squad that is probably the strongest,” Ten Hag had said of this game in the aftermath of Sunday’s scrappy win at Newport. In his 94th game in charge, this was the best team he had picked.

Of those still unavailable, there is an argument Mason Mount would make a difference. Ten Hag clearly had his reasons for spending £55million on him this summer, but Mainoo has made a better fist of doing that job than the England international. Other than that, this is the best team Ten Hag has picked.

He had his new goalkeeper in situ. His first-choice full-backs alongside his World Cup-winning centre-backs of Lisandro Martinez and Raphael Varane. Casemiro was patrolling midfield with Mainoo the link point to Bruno Fernandes. Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford carried a threat out wide and Rasmus Hojlund is finding his feet through the middle.

True to his word, with key men back and those rhythms established, United began to perform. This was, by some distance, their most coherent, most structured performance of the season. They were dangerous going forward and defended well until the meltdown began in the final 20 minutes.

The tone was set by Rashford’s early redemption and control established through a slick move to bring Hojlund his third goal in as many Premier League starts. But it was the quality of some of United’s football that stood out.

Dalot was regularly drifting back into those central midfield roles, at one point taking station in an attacking midfield area to chest down a drilled pass forward from Casemiro. Fernandes picked it up and United had turned defence into attack with one good pass and one piece of clever movement.

Casemiro was excellent, delivering a performance that suggested his United obituaries might have been penned too soon. The 31-year-old had struggled in the first half of the season but shrugged off an early booking at Molineux to dominate midfield. His passing was crisp and his positioning shrewd. He provided the defensive shield that had been beyond him before his injury in November and was unfortunate to concede the penalty from which Pablo Sarabia brought Wolves back into the game, before Scott McTominay scored.

How Ten Hag needs last season’s version of his £70million signing to be back permanently. The ability to salvage this season lay chiefly with Martinez and Casemiro and how close they get to recapturing their levels from 2022/23.

On this evidence – albeit against a poor Wolves side – they might just have decisive contributions to make. It was telling they weren’t on the pitch as the game unravelled. Max Kilman took advantage of some sloppy defending from a corner before Wolves somehow managed to launch a counterattack in the 95th minute.

Antony lost the ball softly and too many United players were caught too far up the pitch when protecting a lead. Onana didn’t do enough to stop Neto’s shot at his near post.

But Molineux was silenced by Mainoo. There have been too many false dawns this season to get too carried away, but this was as positive a night as any this campaign. This result was built on more secure foundations than those dramatic wins against Brentford, Chelsea and Aston Villa and those unconvincing ones against Sheffield United, Luton and Fulham.

They have to improve defensively, but this was encouraging for United and for Ten Hag, at a time when he really needed his luck to turn.