It’s over 18 months since Phil Jones delivered the most legendary of ground-level headers which have given him a cult YouTube status – an epic effort which saw him lose his footing, crawl along the pitch in pursuit of Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud and somehow still get his head to the ball and knock it from the Frenchman’s reach.

It was as characteristic of the player’s capacity for eccentricity as his extraordinary grimaces though the number of competitive games of football he has played since that May afternoon at Old Trafford. Jones’ struggles with injury have limited his total starts since that Arsenal game to a mere 15, and before the start of last month there had been only eight.

No wonder that even his manager, Jose Mourinho, expressed surprise on Monday about the way he has emerged as one of the unexpected bonuses of this difficult autumn for Manchester United - not only finally managing to string a consecutive run of games together but looking an impressive presence in the central defence, too.

It is premature to leap to too many conclusions, but there are signs that we are beginning to see the future England international mainstay that Sir Alex Ferguson talked of, after he was impressed by Jones’ performance for Blackburn against United in the 2011 FA Youth Cup and asked the then Rovers manager Sam Allardyce: “What about the boy Jones?” Ferguson then went on to fight tooth and nail for the defender before landing him for £16.5m.

“I was unsure what his best position would be. Later I came to feel it would be at centre back. He gave us versatility,” Ferguson later reflected and one of the several problems the player has faced is respective managers’ uncertainty about where he should play.

Another has been his physical fragility. Jones has never strung together more than 11 consecutive games for United – and has only managed that twice, in April-September 2013 and December 2014-February 2015. The five consecutive starts we have just witnessed for him is the longest run in the side since the latter of those two periods. What seems most different about him in these past six weeks is less inclination to leap in wildly when something more cautious was required. Still only 24, he seems to have matured in the wilderness.

“There is criticism and praise all the time,” he said after another impressive display in Sunday’s 1-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur. “One minute you can be the blue-eyed boy and the next match you can be slated. That's just the way it is. People have different opinions. But I have always said that if I get a run of games and stay fit I know what I am capable of.”

Despite the initial sense in some quarters that he might be cut out to be a midfielder, Jones has established a skill which is less common in these days of the ball-playing central defender: to stay put. “I am not a player who goes on mazy runs, I like to defend. I like to do a job for the team,” he said. “I am still learning. I am 24 and am not getting any younger and the whole tag of being a young player is no longer with me anymore. I need to kick on and putting in performances.”

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Mourinho hinted that he felt there was something wrong with the way he was being rehabilitated after injury at United. “Even with me he had injuries that stopped him for a long time,” the United manager said. “He was recovering first with the people he trusted in medical department. Then for about three weeks before he joined us he worked with my physio. There was a big improvement in condition. Now he looks fresh, sharp, fast, agile.”

A consistency of personnel at the back has helped. Against some expectation, Jones’ new central partner is Marcos Rojo, with Chris Smalling injured and Eric Bailly only just back. As the BBC’s Phil Neville observed on Monday, Mourinho has a history of sticking with a defensive combination that he finds works, with the beauty of the pair being that they are a right and left-footed pairing. Both concentrate on the nuts and bolts rather than the mazy, John Stones-style runs or Hollywood passes.