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In the summer of 2003, I interviewed PSV Eindhoven striker Mateja Kezman at a south London hotel during the club’s pre-season tour of England.

He was a bright and engaging character basking in the most successful 12 months of his career, which had seen him become the Dutch Player of the Year, win the Dutch title and become the top scorer in the Eredivisie with 35 goals, the most scored in a single season by a foreigner.

He did not, however, hide his wish to swap the Netherlands for one of Europe’s bigger leagues and had come close to joining Barcelona the previous summer.

“If someone comes and can afford me, and I think it is a club where I can progress, then maybe I will go,” he told me. “My wish is to stay one more year, and then we shall see.”

Kezman got his wish, staying at PSV for one more year and scoring 31 more times before signing for Jose Mourinho at Chelsea. The Serbian arrived at Stamford Bridge almost with a guarantee of goals, having scored 105 of them in just 122 league games for PSV.

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But he was soon to discover the Premier League can be different to the Eredivisie, as he finished with just four goals from his 25 league appearances before being discarded by Mourinho after a single season.

For the rest of his career, he passed through some impressive clubs, including Atletico Madrid, Fenerbahce and Paris Saint-Germain, but never came remotely close to repeating the glut of goals he scored for PSV.

Last season, it was Memphis Depay at Manchester United who repeated Kezman’s sudden transformation from dominating the Eredivisie to looking lost in the Premier League.

The confident and bold Memphis, who arrived having contributed 22 goals to PSV’s title win in 2015, failed to show up in England. Instead, for the most part, the Premier League witnessed a diminished figure bereft of his usual swagger who would often aimlessly wander around the pitch.

For every Ruud van Nistelrooy and Luis Suarez the Eredivisie sends to the Premier League, there are also spectacular failures like Kezman and the long-forgotten Afonso Alves, on whom Middlesbrough wasted £13 million in 2008.

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The Dutch league has long been a rich breeding ground for talent of all nationalities, including the fabled Brazilian pair of Romario and Ronaldo, who thrived at PSV, but it is also a comfortable environment that can create a false impression of a player.

This season, we should learn where Memphis falls. Is he a real talent who needed a year to settle, or just another overhyped Eredivisie player?

It seems likely to be the former, and this season—if managed properly by Mourinho—Memphis could still emerge as an important player at Old Trafford.

There is an increasing rush to judge players and prematurely brand them either legends or failures, but history tells us even the best need time to settle into a new country, league and club.

Dennis Bergkamp and Robert Pires, who would both be voted Footballer of the Year while in England, endured slow and average first seasons in the Premier League.

This time last year, I argued that Manchester United would be unwise to sell Angel Di Maria after an unimpressive first season in English football, but he moved on to Paris Saint-Germain, where he contributed 10 goals and a new Ligue 1 record of 18 assists to help his new club win the French title.

In the Premier League, it is easily forgotten that patience can still be a virtue.

The experience of Di Maria should also act as a warning to United and see them proceed with greater understanding with Memphis.

Like Di Maria, Memphis suffered last season under the rigid and stifling tactics of former United manager Louis van Gaal.

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They are both flair players who perform best when they are allowed to play with freedom and express themselves, but Van Gaal instead shackled both of them with his demands to keep possession at all times and not deviate from his strict instructions.

Di Maria managed to escape, but now that United are under new management, they should keep Memphis and start to help him.

Despite a disappointing debut season in the Premier League, Memphis still showed enough glimpses of his talent: the two goals in the Champions League qualifier against Club Brugge, his goal on his return to PSV, his volley at Watford and his goals against FC Midtjylland in the Europa League.

It was thought that Van Gaal, previously his national manager with the Netherlands, would be the perfect man to nurture his talent as a caring paternal figure, but instead he turned into a cruel and demanding stepfather.

Van Gaal never gave Memphis a proper run of games, never allowed him to make his mistakes and learn from them in a new league and only drained his confidence.

It meant that a burdened Memphis, when he was allowed on the field, played with too much pressure and was always too eager to please. His natural game, one based on instinct and trusting his inherent gifts, almost deserted him.

Memphis possesses that rare ability to beat players with pace that is so important in the modern game and, if harnessed properly, can still be such a potent threat.

Last Saturday, coming on as a substitute in United’s friendly win against Galatasaray, there were signs of the old Memphis: He was alert, quick and beating players with ease.

He now needs a manager to believe in him, and Mourinho, with all his renowned motivational powers, could be that man.

On the eve of the new season, Memphis is no longer the shiny new toy he was this time last year; he has been rather forgotten in the rush to laud the new signings of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Zlatan Ibrahimovic and now possibly Paul Pogba. United’s predicted starting lineups for next season rarely include him.

But Memphis is still just 22 and blessed with too much talent to be allowed to drift away from Old Trafford. There should still be much to come from him.