For West Ham United newness is everywhere. It is around eight months since Aaron Cresswell last visited the Olympic Stadium and now, seeing the club’s livery dotted around for the first time, there is an early chance to feel at home. Cresswell has been promoting this season’s kit – some things are more of a novelty than others – and is evidently engaged by his surroundings, pausing at one point to admire the community pitch that sits adjacent to the stands. A rare balmy evening glows with possibility; it must feel as if the left-back has returned to a different, bigger club.

“Yeah, it does and it’s a really exciting time to be here,” the 26-year-old says. “We can’t wait to get started. We’ve got the new stadium, a new training ground [at Rush Green] going up and the chairman’s backing the manager. We’re bringing good players in; we saw how well Dimitri Payet, Manuel Lanzini and the others did last season and now we want to kick on again.”

So far the close season has brought four major signings and two of them, Gökhan Töre and Ashley Fletcher, made their introductions to Cresswell just minutes before he paraded the shirt. Change has been constant recently and all of it positive; last month Cresswell proposed to Jessica, now his fiancée, in Dubai and the pair continued their celebrations in the Maldives. It was doubtless a happier place to be than England’s Euro 2016 base in France and there were plenty who felt that, even with the national team’s surfeit of options in his position, Cresswell should have spent his summer at Euro 2016. The smile, when this is raised, suggests it is far from the first time the thought and question have occurred but the answer gives little away.

“It was frustrating watching as a fan. It was hard because you want them to progress and do well,” he says. “But it’s a young squad and I’m sure there are good times ahead. Of course I’d want [to represent my country] one day and I’m hoping it happens but the focus for me is on West Ham. All I can do is play at my best here.”

The opportunity may arise sooner than he expects. Should Sam Allardyce be named England manager it would be no surprise to see Cresswell, whom the then West Ham manager signed from Ipswich Town two years ago and has spoken of in glowing terms since, named in his first squad. Feelings between the two run both ways; the player is sure Allardyce, at Sunderland now, would be ideally suited to the role.

“I’ve a lot to credit him for,” Cresswell says. “He brought me to the club and I can’t speak any more highly of the year I worked under him. He was fantastic with me personally and, if you ask any of the other boys, they’ll say the same thing. His man-management skills were very good, top drawer, so I think, if he does get the job, he’ll do very well. It’s a good fit for England and we’ll see if he gets it. He had a fantastic coaching staff with him; you’d work on your weaknesses every day, trying to progress and improve as a player, and that’s what I think I did.”

That process continued last season under Slaven Bilic, who has been linked with England himself in rather more speculative terms, and Cresswell has seen other areas of his game develop. West Ham’s more fluid approach was well documented and it certainly did little harm to Cresswell, whose forward combinations resemble peak-era Leighton Baines and whose left foot produced four assists. “He’s been fantastic ever since he walked through the door,” he says of Bilic. “The style is a bit different. Maybe it’s a European thing that he brought into us, wanting us to move the ball and pass it more, with a bit more movement. For 90% of the games last season Dimi [Payet] played in front of me and that made it seem easy; when you’re making that overlap you know the ball’s going to come to you, or that something will be made of your run. When everything clicks together for us, it looks good.”

They should be clicking for some time yet. Payet signed a new contract in February and Cresswell, in another forward step during this summer of advancement, has just agreed a one-year extension. Both deals run to 2021 and both men may, in the first instance, be tasked with hauling West Ham through the third qualifying round of the Europa League. Shakhtyor Soligorsk, of Belarus, or the Slovenian side Domzale may not hold great allure as a curtain-raiser for West Ham’s new life but needs must and lessons have been learned from last year’s defeat by Astra Giurgiu.

“Last season not many of us had played in the Europa League and it was definitely an experience travelling to Andorra, Malta and Romania, under difficult circumstances as well,” he says. “This season we’re starting slightly later and we’re ready to try and go as far as we can.”

They will be well supported in their new home and, although May’s rollercoaster of a final game at Upton Park, a 3-2 win over Manchester United, was “something that will live with me for the rest of my life”, the next step for West Ham and Cresswell will justify the means.

“To play in front of 60,000 people week in, week out, in the Europa League and Premier League – it’s something you dream of,” he says. “Let’s hope we just hit the ground running now.”