At 35, with two damaged knees, and even someone else’s cruciate ligament in one of them, and going into his 13th season as a Premier League goalkeeper having returned to Watford in the summer, Ben Foster remains “pathetically competitive”.

“No matter what it is,” Foster says, laughing. Such as? “Do you know what Strava is?” he asks, referring to the website which tracks a cyclist’s GPS and ranks the best time alongside other users. “So, on Strava if you get this fastest time for a segment you get this ‘king of the mountain’, this little crown,” Foster explains before adding with a sheepish grin: “I have been known to wait for a massive tailwind late at night when there are no cars around and I can just cane it as fast as I can to get that ‘king of the mountain’ thing. My mates will kill me for saying that but it’s super-addictive.”

There is another, related example. “We’ve got a Wattbike [an indoor bike] in the gym and written on the board today was ‘max power test: who can do the most power on the bike?’ And I love the bike. I love cycling. It’s a brain refresh. Troy [Deeney] got a higher max power than me this morning and I am fuming. So I will do leg weights every day in that gym for the next two weeks until I can beat that score.”