Many of the great and good of football were gathered in the directors’ box at Arsenal last week for the match against Paris St Germain and, deep in conversation, were two Davids who certainly merit the former description.

“I had not seen him for a while so that was lovely,” says David O’Leary. And what did David Beckham say back to a man who has played more games for Arsenal than anyone in their entire 130-year history? “He asked me: ‘Where have you disappeared to?’”

Variations on that question are also often aired by fans but, after a decade now out of the English game, the answer is that he has not gone anywhere. O’Leary still lives up in Yorkshire with Joy – his wife of 35 years – and, physically, he looks almost identical to when he began a rollercoaster first job in management at Leeds United that remains one of the Premier League’s most extraordinary chapters.

As he reminisces over several cups of coffee ahead of a match on Saturday between the two clubs he has managed, it seems curious to think that he has been out of an English dugout for so long. “I don’t have an agent or people putting me forward in the media,” says O’Leary, who needed some persuasion even to do this interview.