THE BIT-PART players were given a sip of the limelight against Arsenal on Saturday and they liked the taste.
Nobody seems to have told Phil Neville, Wes Brown and John O'Shea that understudies are supposed to command centre stage for a strictly limited run only.
Because last night, the upstart band of Manchester United bench-warmers and fillers-in took their hit show into Europe and served notice the matinee idols will have to wait their turn in the wings.
Ruud van Nistelrooy might have applied the finishing touches with two clinical efforts - one in each half - that cemented his place in European legend at United.
But it was Phil Neville, Brown and O'Shea and their version of a harder, tougher, hungrier United that laid the foundations for a convincing win over a classy Deportivo La Coruna.
United won last night because of van Nistelrooy and because of the runs of Ryan Giggs and the vision of Paul Scholes. But most of all, they won because they stopped these Spanish artists painting their pretty pictures and weaving the passing, moving magic that has already embarrassed AC Milan at the San Siro this season.
In some ways this is a Frankenstein's Monster of a United team, a side with players stuck on in the wrong positions.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on the right wing, Phil Neville in the centre of midfield, Scholes taken out of midfield, O'Shea at left-back, Silvestre in the centre of defence.
But somehow it is working. And working so smoothly that Sir Alex Ferguson's Monster has turned into a beautiful apparition that is fast turning around United's season