It was on that heady night in the French capital 12 months ago, when Manchester United completed a dramatic Champions League comeback against Paris St-Germain, that Fred enjoyed what Ole Gunnar Solskjaer described as a “breakthrough” performance. In reality, it would be another nine months before the Brazil midfielder produced a display that could really be talked about as a springboard to better things and yet, even then, Dec 7 2019 was a bittersweet day for the player.

Fred’s role in United’s impressive 2-1 win over Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium offered the clearest indication yet of why Pep Guardiola had considered signing the player before his £52 million move to Old Trafford from Shakhtar Donetsk. It was an accomplished showing he repeated seven weeks later when he was named man-of-the-match in the 1-0 Carabao Cup win against City at the same venue and one he will hope to replicate again when the Premier League champions visit Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon. But the gloss off proceedings by apparent racial abuse that left the Brazilian bemoaning a “backward society”.

From bad often comes good, though, and the unwavering support Fred received that day, and in the weeks to come, from team-mates, coaches, staff and officials at United offered another stark reminder that he was at a club determined to do its best by him. The uplift since has been marked. Fred has responded to Solskjaer’s call to arms in the wake of injuries to Paul Pogba and Scott McTominay to gradually quieten the critics who had dismissed him as the next Kleberson, the 2002 Brazil World Cup winner who flopped at Old Trafford.

With McTominay now back and Bruno Fernandes’s arrival already having had a liberating effect, the platform is there for Fred - who was 27 on Thursday and celebrated with a 3-0 FA Cup win over Derby – to kick on again. But the love he has come to feel at United had not always been apparent.

A year or so before that breakthrough moment against City, as Jose Mourinho’s reign limped to an toxic end, Fred was in danger of becoming collateral damage in an increasingly political battle ground. Mourinho had never really wanted him. Fred’s recruitment had been championed principally by United’s chief scout, Mick Court, and with neither the club’s recruitment department nor Mourinho – both of whom had vetoes on signings – being able to settle on a target before then, the Portuguese was effectively left with a choice: Fred or no one.

In the end, Mourinho opted for the body but, as the season progressed, Fred became something of a pawn in the manager’s tug-of-war over a lack of defensive reinforcements. Denied the centre-half he craved in the summer of 2018, Mourinho felt United lacked the defensive strength to accommodate a midfielder with Fred’s skill-set and the player found himself routinely marginalised.