It was back in March last year when Myles Lewis-Skelly fever had captured the nation.
The teenager was playing every week for Arsenal and had been called up by Thomas Tuchel to the England senior team, bypassing the Under 21s in the process. By the end of the month he had scored at Wembley and wrote himself into the record books as the youngest player to score on his England debut, surpassing Marcus Rashford’s record.
But speaking on the touchline of one of the training pitches at St George’s Park, Ashley Cole, then on the Under 21s staff, found himself in the minority by refusing to get too carried away.
‘What I would say is you’ve got to be careful with these young players,’ Cole, who is one of Lewis-Skelly’s biggest fans, told a few of us that day a year ago.
‘They’re special and they’re precious and you have to take your time sometimes.’
Now, 12 months on, Cole’s warning has come back into sharp focus.
Myles Lewis-Skelly has dropped back down to the England Under-21 set-up after enjoying success in the senior team
His international and club future is up in the air, and he has been offered to Manchester United
Progress and success are not always linear. Lewis-Skelly has had to take a step backwards at both Arsenal and with England. His mental toughness has been put to the test for the first time in years.
To this point Lewis-Skelly’s trajectory had been an improbably steep incline.
He made just five appearances for England’s Under 16s before being pushed into the Under-17s. He has just four caps at Under-18s level, and only five for the Under 19s before bypassing the Under 21s completely to get six caps under Tuchel’s watch with the seniors, starting five of them.
But now he is, finally, in with the Under 21s with his club future up in the air and his prospects of making England’s World Cup squad seen as slim-to-none with Lewis Hall and Nico O’Reilly surpassing him in the pecking order.
He finds himself at a crossroads with Arsenal – Daily Mail Sport understands he is under consideration at Manchester United having been offered up to United by intermediaries – and is on the outside looking in with England.
The question inside the FA was, how would Lewis-Skelly respond to it all? Would he embrace the challenges that come with leading a youth team? Would he fancy it in minus-four degrees on an Astroturf in Andorra in front of thousands of empty seats?
The answer that came back was a resounding yes on all fronts.
‘I’ve been really, really impressed with…