The 24-year-old is set to line up against his boyhood club on Sunday and may well use the tie as a platform for a summer return to Old Trafford
Manchester United are in the midst of an identity crisis.
Their long-standing position at the top of the Premier League's food chain has fallen since the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson by those that have followed and the club's core principles have slowly been picked apart.
The somewhat chaotic nature of Jose Mourinho's debut season of Jose Mourinho at Old Trafford - shoehorning the world's most expensive player into a distinctively average first XI competing only for the Europa League - had until last week looked likely to end outside a place in the elusive top four.