What has changed for Memphis Depay? Sipping coke and nibbling olives in Lyons’ old town, a deep young man tells a story of growth and learning to be himself again. He is just back from Ukraine, where he set up Nabil Fekir to send their side into the Champions League knockouts, and that’s a symmetrical 33 goals and 33 assists in 84 league and European games since he left Manchester United. Memphis’s first words frame the rest of our long conversation: “Lyons allowed me to be who I am, to be free — on the pitch and outside as well.”
United was a different experience. Critics said he “did not ‘want it enough” whereas the truth was, he says, he wanted it too much. On
