There are draws that feel like defeats and draws that feel like triumphs, and Everton will file this one firmly under the latter. Trailing 2-1 with the clock deep into six added minutes, staring at a first home loss of a promising young season, Ainsley Maitland-Niles reared back on the edge of the box and struck a shot that will be replayed on Merseyside for weeks. It flew into the top left corner, and the Hill Dickinson Stadium detonated.

The 2-2 scoreline flattered neither side and satisfied neither entirely, but it summed up a match that refused to settle. Manchester United led twice and were seconds from three points that would have transformed the mood around their stuttering start. Everton, resilient and undaunted, kept swinging until the very last. When the final whistle came, it was the home crowd roaring and the visitors slumping, a reversal of everything the 88th minute had promised.

For both clubs this was a game that told a truth about their September. Everton remain unbeaten, stubborn and hard to put away. United, for all their attacking threat, remain a team who cannot quite close the door. A single moment of composure or carelessness continues to define their afternoons.

Mbeumo strikes first

The decisive early blow of the second half belonged to Manchester United, and it was a beauty. Barely a minute after the restart, Kobbie Mainoo slid a pass into space and Bryan Mbeumo took aim from outside the box, curling a left-footed effort into the bottom left corner. It was the sort of clean, unhurried finish that separates the confident from the anxious, and it silenced a ground that had spent the first half urging Everton forward.

The goal followed the grain of United's early-season output. This is a side that has scored seven times in three matches, more than anyone around them in the lower reaches of the table, and Mbeumo's strike underlined the point. When they move the ball with the tempo Mainoo set for that opener, they carry a threat that few defences relish facing.

Yet the lead did little to steady them. United have conceded six in their opening fixtures, a total that betrays a fragility no amount of forward flair can disguise. For long stretches they controlled the contest without ever making it safe, and Everton, sensing as much, kept probing at a back line that never looked entirely convinced of itself.

George levels late

Everton's patience was rewarded seven minutes from time. Hayden Hackney, busy and inventive throughout, worked the ball to the right and picked out Tyrique George inside the box. The finish was emphatic, right-footed and arrowed into the top right corner, a goal of real quality from a young forward growing into the responsibility. The stadium erupted, and for a moment it seemed Everton had done the hard part.

It was a goal that reflected the team David Moyes has assembled here — one that keeps coming, keeps believing, and punishes lapses when they arrive. George's strike was the product of persistence rather than luck, the reward for an afternoon spent pressing at United's flaws. Hackney's assist capped a performance that suggested Everton's midfield has both bite and imagination.

At 1-1 with the clock winding down, a point looked the fairest outcome. Everton had earned parity through sheer refusal to yield, and the noise around the ground carried the momentum of a home side scenting more. Nobody, though, had reckoned with the swings still to come.

Sesko and the sting in the tail

Barely had the equaliser been digested when United struck again. Luke Shaw, pushing forward from the left, whipped in a cross of genuine class, and Benjamin Sesko rose in the centre of the box to guide a header into the bottom left corner. It was a striker's goal, all timing and conviction, and it appeared to have broken Everton's hearts with two minutes of normal time remaining. United's bench leapt as one; the away corner sensed a first away joy of the campaign.

But football offered a final, cruel twist to the men in red. Deep into stoppage time, Everton hurled bodies forward one last time and the ball fell to Maitland-Niles some way out. His finish into the top left corner was ferocious and unanswerable, a strike that arrived at the death to level the score and rip three points from United's grasp. From 1-1 to 1-2 to 2-2 in the space of eight breathless minutes, the game had turned itself inside out.

For Sesko, whose header should have been the story, it was a bitter reward. For United, it was another late collapse in a season that has already delivered a win, a draw and a defeat in equal, uneasy measure. The pattern is becoming familiar, and it is costing them dearly on the road.

What it means

The point lifts Everton to eighth on five, unbeaten with a single win and two draws, and a defensive record — three conceded in three — that speaks to their solidity even on an afternoon of chaos. Moyes will take enormous encouragement from a group that simply would not accept defeat, and from the emergence of George and the audacity of Maitland-Niles. For a club rebuilding its identity, this was a statement of character.

Manchester United sit 11th on four, a return that flatters a side capable of scoring freely but incapable, as yet, of protecting a lead. Their seven goals for and six against tell the whole story of a team caught between attacking promise and defensive doubt. To lead twice at a ground like this and take only a point will gnaw at them long after the coaches have pulled away.

The table remains congested and unforgiving in these early rounds, and both clubs will feel the fixtures ahead offer chances to climb. Everton, buoyed and unbeaten, look the more settled of the two. United, thrilling and maddening in equal parts, must learn to see out the games they have all but won — or afternoons like this will keep slipping away in the final, agonising seconds.