It is a sign of the feverish football times that a player not yet 17 who has yet to make his first team bow should be the subject of transfer speculation  linking him with the Premiership’s elite, but that was the case with full-back Luke Shaw throughout the early stages of 2011. As a seven year old growing up in Surrey he caught the eye of Arsenal and Chelsea but it was considered he lacked the physical stature, even then, and his family subsequently got very familiar with the M3 ferrying him down to Southampton’s academy. Clocking up the miles on the motorway paid off as Luke made his first-team debut in January and then came off the bench at West Bromwich in November 2012 for his League debut.

At 16 years 200 days he became Southampton’s youngest ever Premiership player. With Danny Fox out injured Luke not only kept his place but excelled in his appearances during the 2012-13 season,

displaying both his increasingly strong defensive skills and a flair to get forward with pace.

This was no more in evidence than in his fine run and cross that set up the Saints’ equaliser at Stamford Bridge. In 2013-14 he got even better, starting 35 games in the Premier League and winning his first full England cap in March 2014. The feverish transfer speculation, which had never really gone away, resurrected itself in earnest.

He duly became part of the mass exodus in the summer of 2014, joining Manchester United just three days after representing England in the World Cup fixture against Costa Rica. The fee was around £30m which made him the world’s most expensive teenager. Things did not go as well at Old Trafford as he might have hoped. Managers were coming and going, questions were raised about his fitness and lifestyle but all that paled into insignificance when in September 2015 he was on the receiving end of a career-threatening injury. A double fracture of his leg during a Champions League tie sidelined him for a whole season. He fought his way back to fitness and probably enjoyed his best season to date in 2018-19 when he was voted Players’ Player-of-the-year.