It will be four years this summer since Jose Mourinho tried to sell Anthony Martial when he was manager of Manchester United.
The dysfunctional tour of the United States in 2018 was the battleground for a row that looked like it might have sealed Martial's fate as a United player, with Mourinho ready to cash in on a forward who was already struggling to live up to his price tag.
Had the Portuguese coach got his way, then Tottenham might have been Martial's destination, with Mauricio Pochettino keen on signing the France forward.
Instead, United's board overruled Mourinho and within six months the manager had gone. The Martial story that summer was a sideshow to the main event, which was United's failure to sign a central defender that infuriated Mourinho. History has probably fallen on the Portuguese's side on both counts.
Martial had scored 19 goals in 87 games in the two campaigns before Mourinho's attempts to sell him. Since then he's added 43 more goals in 133 games — but his successful return of 23 goals as a centre forward in 2019/20 proved to be a one-off rather than a launchpad.
Now 26, Martial can't be talked of as having potential anymore. It should be time to be fulfilling it but since Mourinho's departure, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick have both built teams in spite of the forward rather than around him.
Desperate for more game time, Martial has now moved to Sevilla for the rest of this season. The Andalusians might be Real Madrid's closest challengers in La Liga at the moment, but it still feels a step down from United.
Martial's last act before leaving Old Trafford was to play a pivotal role in Marcus Rashford's 93rd-minute winner on Saturday, but that doesn't necessarily have to be his final contribution for United.
Tellingly, there is no option for Sevilla to make the move permanent this summer so Martial will return to United.
His £240,000-a-week wages are being covered by the La Liga side, but he will still have two years remaining on his Old Trafford contract this summer and finding another European club to pay that kind of salary won't be easy.
So while the next five months are a chance for Martial to put himself in the shop window, it's also an opportunity to show his United career might be deserving of a second act. When he comes back to Old Trafford he will find a new manager in charge, the fifth in his seven years at the club.
This one will need to make a call on whether Martial has a future or if it is time to cash on. If it's the latter, United certainly won't be getting the transfer fee they might have been able to bank in 2018.
But Pochettino's admiration for the player four years ago could yet be key. The current Paris St-Germain manager is highly-thought of at Old Trafford and remains a realistic candidate to take over from Rangnick.
If he does finally land the job he looked likely to get in 2019, then Pochettino might decide Martial is worth persevering with.
United aren't short of options out wide, especially with Anthony Elanga and Amad coming through the system, but if Martial can impress as Sevilla he might yet get one final chance to make his mark in Manchester.
Sign up to our United newsletter so you never miss an update from Old Trafford this season.
