“All I know,’ said Gary Neville, “is one, he had a locker; two, there just happened to be a mirror there on the column around the corner opposite where he got changed; and three, he liked it.”

Kit man Alec Wylie, one of those masters of small details, has the last word. “The old dressing room was very small and we had it rejigged. There was only one mirror in the bathroom, so Stu, the maintenance lad, put a full-length mirror in there. Cristiano, when the players returned to the refurbished changing room, had to have that locker. Since then he couldn’t walk past it without checking himself out.”

Conquering the rondos

"Players have been broken in United training," revealed Phil Neville. “Especially in the boxes – the rondos.”

People think rondos is a simple game to warm up before training. A bit of fun. How wrong they are. It is where relationships are created, hierarchies are established. It confirms the player’s ability in small spaces and his reaction speed. It helps build the style the coach wants to implement. It also challenges new arrivals.