Things have moved on quite a bit since Japan. Scolari's goal now is to help the Portuguese rather than the Brazilians to the title next summer while his celebrated midfielder, who featured in five of his country's seven games in the summer of 2002, finds himself behind a string of ostensibly lesser lights, John O'Shea amongst them, in the queue for first-team football at Old Trafford.

While Kleberson must have welcomed speculation in recent weeks that a variety of clubs were lining up a move for his services O'Shea is reported to have been stung by suggestions in the media that he was set to leave Old Trafford, with Newcastle being the most commonly mentioned destination.

The implication has clearly been that the 23-year-old is not quite good enough to make it at Manchester United, a view he might feel he has done a little more to counter over the past week with goals, good and outstanding respectively, against Middlesbrough and Arsenal.

O'Shea might justifiably believe he has been a victim of his own success of two years ago when in his first season as one of Alex Ferguson's regulars he was consistently one of the team's strongest performers. Such was his form over the course of a campaign in which he made 52 appearances for the Premier league winners that he would have probably have made a clean sweep of the various young player awards had it not been for the simultaneous emergence at Everton of his now United team-mate Wayne Rooney.

O'Shea has frequently admitted last season was, by comparison, something of a disappointment. Some below-par performances appeared to dent Ferguson's confidence in him and last summer the Scot invested in Gabriel Heinze, an accomplished left back who has made the position his own. Since then the Irishman has featured at left and right back, centre half and in both central and wide midfield positions while apparently not figuring in what Ferguson sees as his own best line-up.

Just now it is his versatility as much as anything that is keeping him in the United team with such regularity but it is a persistent concern that his inability to nail down a position to call his own will prove a long-term problem.

"I think that last year he suffered a little bit from that classic 'second-season syndrome'," says Mark Lawrenson. "It happens to young players, it certainly happened (Ryan) Giggs and (David) Beckham after they had come bursting through onto the scene. The fact remains, though, that Ferguson clearly rates him and O'Shea does appear to have everything. The difficulty is last year they came to the conclusion that, at that point at least, they couldn't quite rely on him in defence and so they moved him into midfield.

"But the problem is just one of concentration and that will come with time. Even though he's been around for a while now he's really still only learning his trade. I still see him developing into a very good central defender. He's only 23 and they tend to come into their own a little later than that. In the meantime it must be frustrating for him to get moved around so much and there is definitely a bit of a danger in it for him but the sort of versatility he has shown is a pretty good asset to have at a club like United when you're still really getting established."

O'Shea's difficulties last season are, however, easy to overstate. By the end of the campaign he had played 48 times for the first team - more than anyone else at the club.

Kleberson, by comparison, featured in just 16 competitive games during the same period and over the past three season only Ryan Giggs and Mikael Silvestre have played more times than O'Shea, who has been sidelined for a couple of spells this season because of injury.

A major reason for his regular involvement, believes Republic of Ireland under-21 manager Don Givens, is the determination with which he applies himself to improving his own game, something that is all too obvious on Tuesday night when he produced a beautifully weighted left-footed chip to round off United's scoring against Arsenal at Highbury.

"Early on with the under-21s he couldn't kick a ball all that well at all with his left foot," recalls Givens, "and the lads that played with him all knew he would have been uncomfortable on that side. He's gone from that to there being games now where he plays at left back and he barely touches the ball with his right foot.

"Really, that all came about in 12 months or so," he says. "The improvement was noticeable every time you saw him but it was all down to the work he did himself. It probably didn't take all that much, just 15 minutes or so every day after training just working with the weaker foot but he did it for himself .. . That's John, though, he's always been the right sort of lad to make it in the game, the sort that would take things in and work hard to improve himself."

Givens shares the concern over O'Shea's apparent inability to convince Ferguson to play in one position. "I would be a little bit afraid," he says, "that he might get, well, used a bit."

Two years ago after a particularly strong performance against Bayer Leverkusen Ferguson made it clear he saw the player's future as being at centre half with a sideline, perhaps in covering at full back. Yesterday the United boss talked of him "maturing" and developing his game so as to fit more comfortably into a midfield role.

Having effectively discarded Ian Harte, meanwhile, and seen O'Shea endure a particularly uncomfortable time at centre back in Basel 15 months ago, Brian Kerr has embraced him as his first-choice left back at international level. After a shaky start to his competitive career in that position away to Georgia in March, 2003, he looked far more effective there last year, most significantly in Paris where he looked in control.

In the wake of his third goal in nine games for his club he spoke this week of just how confident he is about his game. The perception endures that 2004 was not a good year for him and he is almost certain to lose out to Andy Reid in the young Irish player of the year category at the FAI's International Awards tomorrow night.

However, with a contract worth a reported £50,000 a week that runs until June of next year and, it seems, a knack for developing new talents, O'Shea still looks to have good cause to be confident about his future too.