Manchester United have their first victory of the season, while for West Bromwich Albion the long struggle has begun, though little else about this result is at it might appear.
If Manchester United were looking for an injection of confidence to put last season's failure behind them, this was not it. They were being comfortably held by a composed and hard-working Albion side until the visitors lost their captain just under half an hour from the end.
Even after Derek McInnes' departure for a crude challenge on Nicky Butt, the home side made hard work of breaking Albion down, but after Sir Alex Ferguson had brought on all his attacking substitutes against 10 defenders, the ever-reliable substitute Ole Gunnar Solskjaer finally found the target.
The relegation favourites may well be happier with their performance than the title chasers, however, and Albion and their fans certainly managed to enjoy themselves.
'Playing football, even at the very highest level, should always be a joy,' Ferguson said. Someone should tell his captain, who seems to have spent the past couple of seasons getting far too worked up for his own good.
Ferguson did not appear for the post-match press conference and has little to say anyway on Roy Keane's latest controversy, though he does wish his players could go back to playing with a smile on their faces.
'I felt at times last year that some of the team were not enjoying themselves when things were going wrong,' he wrote in his programme notes, in what may have been an oblique reference to Keane's evident unhappiness. 'That's a self-defeating emotion. A team that does not enjoy playing is not going to succeed.'
The manager has put his finger on something there. Self-defeating was exactly the way United appeared last season, and they still look haunted by the experience. The question is whether Ferguson can sort it out. He claims to have questioned his players' desire and asked them 'to consider carefully whether they had retreated too far into a well-paid comfort zone', but Ferguson's odd selections were part of the problem last season, and they started this one with another unusual formation.’