SPECIAL WAN

I can’t go back to my parents’ house now .. the local kids surround it until I come back out says Eagles’ rising star Aaron

until I leave. The first time I was confused. Like, ‘Wow, how do they know I’m here?’ At the same time it is good. I once looked up to someone like that.”

Given his starring displays, Wan-bissaka’s Palace fan club will be relieved the threat of him being released as a teenager came to nothing.

Speaking at a shoot for the adidas Spectral Mode boot pack, he explained: “Around 14, 15 I was turning up late, was lazy, wasn’t trying in training, looking tired. I was just drifting away with the wrong friends and it was diet stuff too, after school, chicken and chips, fizzy drinks.

“Apparently Palace were looking to release me at 14. They didn’t tell me but my dad did and he sat me down and told me I have to fix up. The way he told me, he was serious. It hit me. I felt his pain so the next season I fixed up and from then I’ve just been shooting up.”

Watching Wan-bissaka (right, tackling Chelsea’s Eden Hazard) it is hard to believe he is relatively new to the right-back position.

He joined Palace at 11 as a Thierry Henry-idolising striker and also played right wing.

But one first-team training session when he impressed against Wilfried Zaha made players and coaches sit up and take notice. Wan-bissaka said: “He couldn’t really get past me and they were saying things like, ‘Let him out your pocket’ and stuff like that.”

He remembers one early right-back run-out for the under-23s “not going well”.

But he stuck with it, put in extra work and his development did not go unnoticed by boss Roy Hodgson, which is why his request to go on loan was refused.

He was given his first-team debut against today’s visitors Tottenham, equally-daunting follow-up starts against Manchester United and Chelsea and has not looked back.

He admitted that before those games, “I don’t really think I was ready, but I was ready to give it my all and show the manager I’ll give everything for him giving me this chance. Now I’m looking forward to them.”