Whilst he waited for his transfer to be finalised, Raphael Varane requested clips of Manchester United's porous defending at set-pieces from the 2020-21 season.
United sieved 18 goals from dead-ball situations and that figure nosedived to six last season. Varane was only on the pitch for Aston Villa defender Kortney Hause's winner (for which Edinson Cavani was caught on his heels) and Brentford's consolation.
In an injury-plagued season, Varane was complicit in United's worst defensive campaign since 1978-79. It was not a coincidence he was absent for the minimum four-goal shellackings by Leicester, Liverpool (twice), Watford and Leicester but Varane became tainted in the worst of the lot at Brighton.
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At one stage in pre-season, Varane appeared to be fourth in Erik ten Hag's central defensive pecking order. Lisandro Martinez was arriving as the left-sided centre-back, Harry Maguire's captaincy status safeguarded his place and Victor Lindelof started in all five friendlies he was available for.
Less than a month later, Ten Hag was purring about the "immense" Varane and had performed a U-turn on Maguire: "I think that doesn’t mean when you are captain you are established to play always. Especially when you also have Varane in your squad.
"We have options. And you have already said… Varane… his stature is immense and in pre-season we took a decision to build him physically so he had a bit of a slow start."
In the four games Varane has started in, United have won all four and conceded two goals in six hours. They have lost all three games he has not started in. Again, not a coincidence.
Martinez, a fan favourite who has quickly earned a chant to the tune of UB40's Kingston Town as well as the obligatory cries of "Ar-gen-ti-na", received the club's player of the month accolade for August when Varane was the worthier recipient. Martinez would doubtless agree.
"Sos impresionate" - you are awesome - Martinez wrote on Varane's Instagram post celebrating the win over Liverpool. Martinez's comment was accompanied by a love-heart eyes emoji and he wrote again following the defeat of Leicester: "What a pleasure to play by your side brother." Martinez must already qualify for top-fan status on Varane's page.
Diogo Dalot and Malacia are frequent commenters on Varane's posts, such is the awe he inspires in those around him. Varane and Martinez communicate in Spanish, as they do with right-back Dalot. Varane has started conducting interviews in English, having opted for some translated chats last season.
Ten Hag may wince at the fact he started the season with Varane sat on the bench. Softly spoken, Varane had a pitchside seat for the feckless first-half at Brentford before he emerged for the goalless second-half. He could pinpoint what was amiss.
“It's difficult to explain why but we didn't start the games with the same intensity, with the same fighting spirit. We had the motivation but it's difficult to explain why it was starting with this low energy.
“Football, it's about energy, it's about when you have to push, when you have to stay calm, when you have to attack."
Ten Hag noted the promise of Varane and Martinez in the latter's first appearance against Rayo Vallecano: "I think it was a really good combination with Rapha and I think they played really solid and that was good to see. The question is how do you integrate him, but I think he will integrate quite well into the team." The solution to integration was to recall Varane.
Ten Hag decided to drop Maguire for Varane five days before the pivotal victory over Liverpool and he has reinforced over the last three weeks he is United's most important player. Varane is the injury their fans would dread the most during this month's internationals.
"He was fit in the first games but in the first period of pre-season he wasn’t always," Ten Hag explained, "so we are happy we built him in that way and you see when the team needed him he was really there and his profile, his stature and what he won already in the past shows he can really contribute to his team.
"For the team, there is competition and we need that. We have to cover so many games and we can do that in several constructions and we can see from game to game what we need, what can be the construction from Liverpool but also as in the second-half in Brentford we played with Varane and Maguire in the centre, so there are many options."
Varane's peripheral role in pre-season invited an unflattering comparison with Bastian Schweinsteiger, another eminent name United paraded years later than planned.
Like Schweinsteiger, Varane's knee was a source of concern; an operation he had in 2013 was flagged by United medical staff during his medical and the contract had to be redrafted, causing a nervous delay to the announcement of his signing.
It was not beyond the realms of possibility Varane, who bade farewell to Real Madrid players and staff at their Valdebebas training complex and had already quarantined in England with Covid-19 protocols still in effect, could have returned to Spain, destined to never play for United.
Ten years later than Sir Alex Ferguson would have preferred, Varane did and his unveiling on the Old Trafford pitch evoked memories of Bryan Robson's on-pitch signing in 1981 ahead of United's thrashing of Wolves.
The presence of Varane, a serial winner, and the spectacle of United eviscerating Leeds 5-1 with a capacity crowd back for the first time in 17 months gave the illusion United were back. They weren't.
With Varane back in the team, they might be.
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