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LONDON. — Whatever happens to him in his career, Jose Mourinho will always have Arsene Wenger. When he’s low, he can summon Wenger and know that everything will be all right. Even when times are bad, he can rely on the fact that Wenger will be there to be his patsy. Things change fast in football but the Mourinho-Wenger dynamic always stays the same.Mocking Wenger is Mourinho’s trump card. It is his consolation. He was at it again last week. Eighteen months and 18 years, he said, exaggerating for effect the difference between how long has passed since each man won the English Premier League title.

Mourinho loves taunting Wenger. Loves it. He finds the cruelty of it quite delicious. Some will say Wenger had the last laugh on Saturday. Olivier Giroud’s late equaliser gave Arsenal a point they did not deserve after Mourinho’s Manchester United had outplayed them.

Except, in his own clever way, Mourinho made sure Wenger did not have the last laugh. He did at least salvage that from the disappointment he felt.

“Finally, I lost against Arsene,” he said at the end of his post-match press conference. He was grinning broadly. He got up and said it again as he moved towards the door.

“Finally, I lost against Arsene.” And then before he disappeared, he said it again. “Finally, I lost against Arsene.” He was smiling the whole time.

Because, of course, he had not lost against Arsene. It might have felt like a loss but it was not actually a loss. For those who see only the Machiavelli in Mourinho, it seemed as if he were making a great play of the fact that his team had thrown away victory in a game they utterly dominated. It was a grand show of false modesty, which is the only modesty that Mourinho knows.

This was the occasion, don’t forget, when Wenger was supposed to reverse the trend, when he was supposed to capitalise on the fact that his Arsenal side have been so much more assured than United this season.

This was the match when he was supposed to end the hoodoo and record a first win over Mourinho in a competitive match at the 14th time of asking. It did not happen. In fact, Mourinho came within a couple of minutes of inflicting another humiliating defeat on the Arsenal boss.

Once again, Wenger seemed to have brought the best out of a Mourinho side as United played some of their best football of the season. They went into the closing stages leading through a second half goal from Juan Mata and they deserved to be ahead.

And once again, Wenger’s team froze against Mourinho. Arsenal looked insipid and ordinary, a shadow of the side that have produced so many scintillating performances this season. Ramsey, Walcott and Elneny were anonymous. Sanchez looked tired. Even Ozil only produced his magic in fits and starts. Arsenal showed little verve and less ambition.

Yes, their equaliser was important. It robbed United of momentum and, more importantly, it provided more proof that Arsenal have at last acquired a degree of resilience this season that they have lacked before. They did not give up against United even though they barely had a foothold in the game and that spirit paid off.

So, sure, they will take great comfort from their point. Arsenal fans will remember the cliché about how it is the mark of champions to take something from a match even when you have played poorly. And to do that at United, where Arsenal have struggled so badly in recent times, will have been particularly pleasing for the Arsenal boss.

But the lasting memory of this match will be of a fragile Arsenal and a resurgent United. Mourinho’s side may still be fretting at the edges of the top four but after all the angst of recent weeks, this looked like a team that is beginning to find its way back.

In particular, Mourinho appears to have found a balance in midfield that is working with his trident of Ander Herrera, Michael Carrick and Paul Pogba.

Herrera was the man-of-the-match against Arsenal and he topped his performance with a drilled pull-back that created the opening goal for Mata.

Even with a makeshift central defence featuring Phil Jones and Marcos Rojo — “nobody knows what he is”, Mourinho said of the Argentine defender — United kept Arsenal’s attacking talents easily at bay until the introduction of Giroud and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who escaped the attentions of Marcus Rashford to lay on the equaliser.

So even though United failed to close the gap on any of the top four, even though they are now eight points off the top, there was a feeling at Old Trafford that progress was being made and that the club was moving in the right direction.

Mourinho felt that, too. That was why he felt able to make the gag about losing to Arsene. That was why he repeated it again and again to make sure we got the message. Some of his confidence has been missing of late but yesterday he had a bit of swagger about him again.

The tinges of self-pity that had crept into his language in the last few weeks as United struggled to live up to his pre-season boast that they would be challenging for the title this season were gone yesterday.

Stoicism has never been one of his qualities but he began to smile again after this match.

Fifteen minutes before half-time, the Arsenal fans penned in the away corner of Old Trafford had begun to sing at Mourinho as he stood on the touchline, hands buried deep in his coat pockets. “You’re not special any more,” they yelled at Jose Mourinho. “You’re not special any more.”

That may be wishful thinking. United are a long, long way from being the dominant team of old. That team would never have conceded a late goal like Saturday’s.

But the draw with Arsenal still represented a step forward. A first loss to Wenger would have been a heavy psychological blow for Mourinho. It didn’t happen. Wenger let him off the hook. He may come to regret it. — The Daily Mail