When Morgan Schneiderlin won three Player-of-the-Year awards in 2012-13, two of them official – as voted for by his team-mates and the fans, respectively – plus the unofficial trophy from the travelling supporters, that vindicated three decisions he had taken along the way.

It is surely a commonplace in the modern game that so many youngsters think they can best learn by practising in the week with super-stars and then watching them on Saturday from the Stand – or the bench if they’re lucky. Morgan had bucked that trend, three times over, before he was 20. As he explained to the Times, early in that season of 2012-13, he could have left his home-town club, RC Strasbourg, at 16, when

Arsène Wenger invited him to join Arsenal. But Morgan “did not want to go and sit on the bench like some others. I wanted to go and play football.”

And if he wasn’t going to be playing regularly, then he knew that he “wasn’t ready” to leave Strasbourg. So he stayed at Strasbourg, forever on the bench, until Georges Prost, a former manager of the Saints Academy, recommended him to Southampton. Now 18, Morgan had to refine his earlier decision. He was “ready to take a chance” in England, but not to sit on a Premiership bench: he was content to join Southampton’s young Championship squad on a four-year contract. He was assured that the club was “aiming for the Premier League.”

But at the end of his first season, they were relegated to League One. Decision-time, again. Morgan “thought about asking to leave,” but a new owner and manager arrived and soon demonstrated, by their signings, that their “aim” might yet be achieved. That it was achieved within the duration of his contract exceeded all expectations. And who doubts that Morgan benefited from playing third-tier football?

Certainly not Morgan, who feels that he learned so much from the experience of being “tackled from everywhere in League One.”

He picked up injuries and he picked up cards, but he also collected many admirers along the way. If there was a consensus that he tackled back well and had a good short-passing game, there were those who questioned the wastefulness of his more speculative longer passes – fashioned on his role model, Steven Gerrard – and his not doing a great deal in the final third.

His critics in the latter regard included Terry Paine, yet when he picked his Premiership team-of-the 2012-13 season, for his Echo column, Terry included Morgan and paid generous tribute to his developmental spurt. Morgan had seldom looked like adding to his first goal for the Saints – a memorable 25-yard volley at Bristol Rovers in April 2010 – and who would have predicted that he’d score five times in 2012-13, popping up in the six-yard box to finish in style? He had by now represented Les Bleus at every level from U-16 to U-21 and had captained the U-18s. At the presentation of his awards in May 2013, he was reminded that he had played in England for five years and would be eligible to represent his adopted country. So would Morgan consider it?

His broad grin was response enough. He was sticking with France and sure enough he won a late call-up to France’s World Cup squad that went to Brazil and won his first cap v Jamaica in June 2014, the first of an eventual 15. But becoming a full-fledged international coincided with him growing restless at St Marys and despite having in February 2013 extended his contract until 2017 he signalled to the club that he wanted a move. He had seen the likes of Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren and Luke Shaw join so-called bigger clubs and very much wanted to join them.

The club refused to sanction a transfer and he took to Twitter to vent his spleen. In the end some sort of compromise was reached and after he stayed to start 24 League games for Ronald Koeman and help the team reach 7^th in the table, their highest to date Premier League finish, he joined Manchester United for £25m. But his spell at Old Trafford was not particularly happy as he struggled for game time while United continued to struggle after the departure of Alex Ferguson and he decided to join Ronald Koeman’s Everton in January 2017. That move hardly worked out any better as injuries restricted him cementing a permanent place in the starting XI and in the summer of 2020 after more than a decade in English football he returned to France, joining Nice for an “undisclosed” fee.