Even now, seven years on, Josh McEachran sounds shocked. “I was 16, at Chelsea, and my agent at the time said: ‘Real Madrid want you’. It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? At that age,” McEachran recalls.

“I had the chance to go to Real Madrid or Man United. Real Madrid had the contract waiting for me and they wanted all my family to fly over but I said: ‘No, I want to stay at Chelsea’. I was a Chelsea fan. ”

McEachran is sitting in one of the huts at Brentford’s training ground as he discusses this weekend’s FA Cup Fourth Round tie with Chelsea, how he was the big hope, the star, of the Premier League club’s youth academy, a Champions League debutant only a year after Real came calling - and why he had to eventually leave Stamford Bridge.

McEachran also knows dropping in the Real Madrid link will prompt another question – or, rather, the same question re-framed. Just to try and get a handle on it. Why, exactly, did he say ‘no’? “Yeah, I know! I don’t know!” he says, laughing. “I just knew, I just believed in myself that I was going to make it (at Chelsea). Under (manager) Carlo (Ancelotti), when I made my debut I was like, saying to myself ‘ah, that was a good choice for me to say no to Real Madrid’ but looking back now maybe I should have (gone)!”