It is a story told with a smile but it is also a reminder that this game moves on fast. Giggs played 963 games for United and now finds himself in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson period as the man who sits alongside the manager in a new era, one in which United’s status as deposed kings of English football can be difficult for some of their younger fans to compute.

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On Thursday against Liverpool in the second leg of their Europa League round-of-16 tie, United find themselves in familiar territory – a must-win game against an old enemy. When Giggs made his debut, Liverpool were the reigning champions and there is no one better placed than him to offer a perspective, historical and current, on United’s season.

“The consistency has been frustrating,” he says. “We would go on a good run and then have a disappointing result. Obviously there have been a lot of injuries. A lot of them have been freak injuries – shoulders and Luke Shaw’s leg. A lot of knocks, the kind of things you can’t do anything about. And then when the squad gets small you are asking a lot of players to play games when maybe they could be rested or rotated.