Jonny Evans was unemployed last July when he decided to call his old team-mate Darren Fletcher.
“I was sat in my house with my wife Helen and thinking, ‘I’m not a good trainer on my own in terms of going out on the roads running’,” the Manchester United defender tells The Athletic. “Maybe the odd run or two over the years when I’ve needed to but without thinking about it, I just thought, ‘I’ll ring Fletch’.
“He answered and said, ‘Let me get back to you’. When I put the phone down, I thought, ‘There might be issues with insurance, for example’, but I just wanted to train and get my fitness.
“Fletch (United’s technical director) called back a few days later and said, ‘The manager has heard that you want to come in. You may as well train with the first team’, so I did. When I went back, seeing all the staff after being away for eight years was the best part of it all.
“From there, the situation progressed daily. There was no intimation to me that the manager wanted to sign me with a contract but the injury situation prevailed right from the start of the season. There’s never been a stage this season where it wasn’t an issue.
“But I’m an experienced Premier League player and I’ve been in many a training session over the years,…
