Nineteen months have passed since Jonny Evans was sitting on the back of a golf cart with Sir Alex Ferguson chatting about his next career move after being informed by Louis van Gaal that he was surplus to requirements at Manchester United.

“There were a few whispers and I was playing golf one day at one of the United Foundation events,” the Northern Ireland defender recalled. “Sir Alex took me to the side, sitting on the golf buggy, and talked it through with me. He’s obviously big friends with Tony Pulis [at West Bromwich Albion] and was pushing me in that direction. I thanked him for that at the time and took his advice.”

Michael Keane tends to be the main source of frustration among United fans these days when they discuss defenders who got away but they will encounter another old boy playing the best football of his career when West Brom visit Old Trafford. Evans and compatriot Gareth McAuley have formed arguably the Premier League’s most underrated central-defensive pairing, a partnership that has also served as the bedrock of Northern Ireland’s resurgence on the international scene.

Evans’s only regret about Saturday's game, though, is that the suspended Zlatan Ibrahimovic will be missing for United. Evans is far too modest to suggest the club made a mistake letting him go, or that he could see the writing on the wall under Van Gaal. If anything, he feels he needed to leave to grow as a defender.