footballer

“I got stabbed on the shoulder first”, he tells BBC Sport.

“I remember jumping over the table, jumping over the chairs. I was just running down the corridor, telling people, ‘there’s a guy with a knife, run, I’ve been stabbed, run, run, run’. I was screaming. I think I was the first person that got stabbed. I felt the pain. But adrenaline kicked in.

“That split second, me jumping over the table, saved me. All I thought about was just running for my life, getting off that train. As I got down to the first or second carriage, I pulled the alarm, and was just drenched with blood.”

“I was thinking I wasn’t going to see my family again, if I died, and that was the main worry for me”, he says. “Normally I would drive back down to London. That was the first time I got on a train to go back. What’s the chance of that happening? It’s crazy.”

The train made an emergency stop at Huntingdon where it was met by armed police. Having been given first aid by a fellow passenger, Gjoshe managed to get himself out to the station car park, from where paramedics rushed him to hospital.

It was only after surgery that he learned he had sustained seven wounds to his bicep, shoulder and arm.

The knife, he was told by the medics, “had gone through my muscles” coming fractionally close to hitting a nerve in his arm.

When asked if he feared his footballing career could be over, he says, “I was very worried. Just thinking, ‘what damage has happened to me?’ I didn’t have a clue until I had the surgery. They said, ‘It’s not much from the nerve. You’re very lucky’.”

In the days that followed, Gjoshe recalls: “They had to move me from ward to ward because of the media that were coming there looking for me.”

Having been released from hospital, Gjoshe faced several months of rehab, only returning to full training in March, something he describes as “a big relief. I started to get the movement of my arm, day by day it was getting better. It was an amazing feeling”.

Despite handling what he has been through with impressive stoicism, Gjoshe has not been on a train since the mass stabbing.

“I wouldn’t want to now. You just never know know. It’s best to be safe. I just can’t trust anything now”, he says.

There is no doubt Manchester United have given Bruno Fernandes a push to get this award.

United have been playing up Fernandes’ claims and also ensured the Portugal playmaker was promoted through some recent media engagements.

However, this would have been pointless had Fernandes not delivered at a time in the season when United needed him to deliver.

In October, when Fernandes spoke about qualification for the Champions League, few thought it was likely.

In January, when technical director Jason Wilcox told the United squad that was the aim despite Ruben Amorim’s dismissal, it seemed a tall order.

That they have achieved it with three matches to spare and could yet end the campaign nearer in points terms to the eventual champions than in any other season since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement 13 years ago, owes a huge amount to Fernandes.

Since returning from a rare injury against Burnley, Sunday’s victory over Liverpool was only the third match out of 16 in all competitions when Fernandes has not either scored a goal or created one.

His performances across the season have been consistently high and worthy of wider recognition.

Twelve months ago, when the debate over Fernandes’ United future raged, the question being asked was simply this: where would they be without him? The suspicion was they would have been much closer to relegation than they actually were.

The same could be asked now. The answer? They surely would not be looking forward to a Champions League return.