This was a thrilling, bruising game, and even a very funny one at times. Not least in its final significant act in the 97th minute, a cross from the right that found Harry Maguire unmarked in front of goal and wreathed suddenly in the cold, hard spotlight of destiny, but opting instead to smash the ball into the crowd like a man punting a crumpled beer can over a factory fence.

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The end result was a good draw for Manchester United, which is no small thing, and definitely an improvement on the recent trend for bad defeats. It was probably a good result for Liverpool too after a performance that was spirited at times but some way short of the sunlit stroll of the first half of the season. This point will perhaps mean more by the end than some of those cloudless victories.

From a United perspective it was another wonderful match for Amad Diallo, who didn’t always play well, who spent quite a lot of the game writhing in agony or running himself into a state of exhaustion, but produced in the process an exercise in not stopping, chasing the sun to the last breath, and in how to end up having a great time when for quite a long time, it might have looked like a terrible time.

Diallo is above all a hopeful footballer. This was no bad thing at Anfield where his first notable act was to head the ball backwards away from an open goal with 20 minutes gone, leaping, hanging in the air, wrenching his neck and, again, heading the ball back away from an open goal.

Diallo had misjudged the intersection of a swirling wind and Diogo Dalot’s hard, flat cross. For good measure he was left writhing in agony by Alisson’s challenge, which was some way short of a clattering but then Diallo is also basically made of elastic and goose down.

He leapt up. He kept running. Difficult things kept happening. He slipped and fell over on the ball in front of the Kenny Dalglish Stand with Buster Keaton-like comic timing. He was booked for over-celebrating United’s opening goal, despite not really playing any part in it.

Related: Amorim hails Manchester United’s mentality after draw at Liverpool

But he also produced the key moment of the match on 80 minutes, still out there running because his manager knows he has, in Diallo, an exercise in sporting optimism. The goal was a scuffed finish from an Alejandro Garnacho cross, a moment made by Diallo’s lovely sneaking run across the back of Andy Robertson.

He knee-slid in celebration. He smiled, massively. He had to be pulled away from the United fans on that side because there was, it turned out, a football match to be completed. Ruben Amorim must love this kid, who keeps giving him these moments away from home against his biggest local rivals, and in the process buying time, which Amorim needs more than anything else.

Above all the late equaliser provided concrete reward for Amorim’s own most significant act, the tightening of his central midfield. United came into this game having kept one clean sheet under Amorim – and that against Everton, who have made a lifestyle choice to just remove scoring goals from their weekly routine.

Amorim has seemed a little hunted during that period. Before the game he spoke about anxiety and a lack of leaders, describing his players in terms usually reserved for pale and terrified Victorian children. Here he spun the ceremonial midfield roulette wheel once again. There was a much-deserved standing down for the Christian Eriksen-Casemiro combination, a midfield with all the creaky charm of watching your dad play badminton. In its place was the most high-ceilinged combination available, Manuel Ugarte and Kobbie Mainoo, with Bruno Fernandes dropping in to provide a three out of possession.

The key element wasn’t personnel, however. It was Amorim’s ability to convince his centre-backs to be bold, to step up and help the midfield, to act as part of a team rather than waiting, teeth gritted, to defend the bridge. Harry Maguire and Matthijs de Ligt might look like an experiment in anti-speed. But speed matters much less when you’re not always chasing. And from the start all three central defenders stepped in to reinforce the deep spaces, the focus very clearly on filling the midfield void at the heart of this team that just seems to be passed down from manager to manager like a chipped mahogany sideboard, to the extent you really do get the feeling it might just be trying to tell you something about soul and heart and institutional hollowings-out.

In those more compressed spaces Mainoo was excellent, tigerish and feisty, loving the mud and the fight. Fernandes had an increasingly expressive game. Rasmus Højlund worked like a soviet farm horse up front, head down, hooves always driving.

United’s opener came from their left, Fernandes finding a lovely nudged pass for Lisandro Martínez to clank a full-force goal-kick style finish into the roof of the net. Cody Gakpo scored a lovely goal, doing something terrible to De Ligt in the process, feinting inside on his left foot with a deliciously soft touch, then producing the perfect piano forte contrast on his right. Mohamed Salah converted a penalty after De Ligt had handled. Then came that equalising moment.

A point is, of course, only a point. Victory at Manchester City was followed by three dreadful defeats. But Amorim will see hope in sealing those key central holes. And of course in the lesson of Diallo: just keep moving forward.