Jonny Evans tells a good story from his early days in Manchester United’s first team when, left one-on-one in defence during one game, the centre-half was spotted by Sir Alex Ferguson trying to beckon back a full-back from his mandatory station high up the pitch in the hope of a little cover. “You’re Manchester United, son,” Ferguson decreed. “Let them worry about you.”

There was a time when full-backs pushed high and wide at Old Trafford was the norm but they are two of the positions to have suffered most in the post-Ferguson landscape. They were under constant instruction to pass inside to the centre-halves and seldom given the licence to cross the halfway line during Louis van Gaal’s sleep inducing reign. Jose Mourinho was not so restrictive but he was risk averse, always at loggerheads with one full-back or another and the position became a constant conundrum for him, typified by the persistent chopping and changing there.

If Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s first two games have told us anything, it is that his full-backs will be given licence to attack in true Ferguson tradition or, more likely, because that is what the best, progressive, modern teams expect and demand of players in that position.