Jose Mourinho has been keen to include Sir Alex Ferguson in life at Manchester United after he kept his distance during the time of David Moyes and Louis van Gaal.

It’s the same relationship we had in the old days. A phone call, an SMS, sympathetic details like we always had with each other. A Christmas, a birthday, a more important game. When he left here, he wanted to leave and not come back. I think, perhaps, for his own comfort. Maybe going back is to suffer a little.

But after I arrived he came in again. He came back to visit the people he worked with for so many years. He traveled with us once again. And that’s what I said: It doesn’t make sense that we’re playing in London and go on a private train and you Sir will go by car. You’re not going by car, no. Go by train with the team.

But he is so respectful that he becomes even a little shy in this approach. We have to make him feel loved. In our head there are no ghosts, no complexes, no such thing.

There have been situations at the end of the game where Sir Bobby Charlton comes down, the executive director comes down, and he, who is with them, does not come to the dressing room. That kind of situation, I already said that makes absolutely no sense. That with me he has to be perfectly at ease to do it as a person of his dimension and who represents so much to the club.