Will Fish has opened up on the circumstances which led to his Manchester United exit last summer.
The centre-back joined Cardiff City instead of staying with the Premier League giants, having played just one senior game for the club and wanting to start his career in earnest.
The 21-year-old had enjoyed positive loan spells away from the Manchester club, including two stints with Scottish club Hibernian, and returned to United last summer with his future still in the balance.
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He also had a decent pre-season with the club before sustaining a nasty injury during a match with Liverpool out in the States, which prompted then manager Erik ten Hag to come on to the pitch to check his wellbeing before he was taken off on a stretcher. Sign up to our daily Cardiff City newsletter here.
It would be his last outing for the club, an unceremonious ending to his 14-year stay with the Red Devils. But in his heart of hearts, he knew he had to get out of there and begin a new chapter.
"I came back from a decent season, playing a decent amount of games, I just wanted to go and test myself," Fish said of the decision to leave the club.
"I felt like I could have stayed at United, but I would have just gone on loan, come back, done pre-season, and gone on loan again. I didn't feel like there was a pathway there for me to break into the first-team setup properly.
"Cardiff came about and it was a pretty easy decision in the end."
Asked if it was him who drove his Old Trafford exit, Fish replied: "Yeah, it more or less came from me. I did have the option to stay there and extend my time there, but I needed to get out and experience the real world."
Coming from such a storied club like Manchester United, Fish would have been surrounded by first-class players for a decent chunk of his career.
Asked which players he had leaned on and learned the most from to date, he said: "At United, I'd be there for pre-season and then I'd be on loan again, but Harry Maguire and Scott McTominay, he was a good one, because he had come through the academy as well and had an unbelievable career.
"But at Hibs, their captain Paul Hanlon, when I first broke in I started playing with him and he ended up leaving with 600 games, just little messages, talking me through games and I'm always grateful for what he did."
Fish has had to be patient and bide his time since coming to Cardiff City. He has been behind Dimitrios Goutas, Calum Chambers and Jesper Daland for most of the season, but this weekend he will have a chance to stake his claim.
The Bluebirds take on Stoke City in the FA Cup and Fish is almost nailed on in that starting centre-back berth. Fans are keen to see more of him, given he has caught the eye once or twice in the fleeting appearances he has had to day.
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"Every time you play for the club you're going to try and do your best. That's all I'll try and do," he added.
"It's been tough at times, but the lads in front of me have done well and the way football works, it takes one little moment to get your chance and hopefully take it.
"Fair play to Andy (Rinomhota), you could see even when he wasn't playing he was a top professional and trained well. He's an obvious good example. Once he got that chance he took it and now he's probably been one of our most consistent players."
Even during January, there might have been a conversation about sending Fish out on loan to get more minutes under his belt. Fish has started just once for the Bluebirds, in the last round of the FA Cup, and has made two starts and four substitute appearances in the Championship.
But after frank conversations with manager Omer Riza, Fish convinced the manager and the powers-that-be that he wanted to fight for his place.
"I spoke to him a few times, with the window just gone, we sat down, spoke and I told him my desire to stay and how much I wanted to fight for my place," he added. "He was fully on board with that."
