Now we know why David Moyes spent all summer long chasing Kurt Zouma.
The former Chelsea man was always his number one priority and from what we’ve seen in the last two games he is going to be the lynchpin at the centre of defence.
It becomes more and more difficult to see how Craig Dawson will become anything other than a fourth choice, given too how superbly Issa Diop performed in Croatia in midweek.
Zouma today was totally immense at the heart of defence and afterwards was ready to pay tribute to a team which deserved far far more than defeat.
The game had absolutely everything in terms of entertainment value but the events at the end from Lingard and Mark Noble could hardly have been imagined as a reality.
And afterwards Zouma gave his summary of a game which often had the stadium rocking with excitement as it swung one way and then the other.
He explained to www.whufc.com: “It was my first game here and the fans were brilliant today. We wanted to make the fans happy. I think we did, not by the result but by the way we played, Everyone was working hard but unfortunately we couldn’t get any points.
“The desire and the spirit of the boys were great. We were fighting for the ball, were good behind the ball and quite dangerous on the counter attacks too.
“For the following matches we have to keep the same spirit. Defensively we were very good, but unfortunately they scored at the end. We played a good game and we can move on.”
Zouma also had consoling words for skipper Noble, who came off the bench to take that stoppage time penalty, only to suffer a rare miss from the spot.
“We feel sorry for him and we know that on another day he would score. This is football,” the No4 said.
“He’s experienced enough to take any penalty and we know the next one he will score for sure.”