The date is July 8, 2019 and Manchester United’s players are checking into the five-star Crown Towers hotel in Perth, where they will stay during the first leg of their pre-season tour.

Fred, though, is not present. The Brazil midfielder is 9,000 miles away at Five Guys, an American fast-food restaurant in the Trafford Centre, ordering a milkshake with one of his friends.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had allowed Fred to miss the first leg of the tour because he was due to get married on July 14. Fred thought the wedding would fall during his time off as he assumed that he would be included in the Brazil squad for the Copa América, which ended on July 7, but he was dropped and had to