Patino: It was a cold afternoon when I went down to Swansea to meet Patino

It was a cold afternoon on September 28 last year when I went down to Swansea Football Club to meet Charlie Patino.

The diminutive midfielder was splayed out on a chair in the club dressing room, ready for his only interview since leaving Arsenal on loan in August.

He was buoyant, for sure. Three assists and a goal in eight matches, seven of which were starts, had left the 20-year-old confident ­– and with his Gunners prospects on his mind for next summer, citing William Saliba’s transition from being loaned out on three successive season to becoming an Arsenal mainstay.

‘Saliba is a different player to me,’ he said.

‘He’s a centre back, big, powerful, so for me it’s inspiring to see someone from Arsenal being able to go on loan, make a name for himself and come back and show his qualities at Arsenal because it is a massive club.’

Patino gave no inkling of doubt in relation to his future at a club he joined aged 11 as he spoke effusively to me of the advice imparted to him by the likes of Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe.

It makes his sudden drop-off all the more arresting, the 20-year-old set for a move abroad at season’s end.

With just one year left on his Arsenal contract, and the emergence of 17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri who signed his first professional contract last month, the exit door surely beckons.

Patino holds a Spanish passport through his father Jules, which would boost his hopes of moving to La Liga because of Brexit rules.

The career of a young player not going as originally mapped out is certainly not new. Though, you see, it was never supposed to be that way for a prospect whose talents were once compared with Saka.

In fact, Arsenal’s head of scouting Sean O’Connor described him as the ‘best player who has ever