The last time we saw him, the painful end was coming. He knew it, we knew it. It was October 22 and Everton had just been pummelled by Arsenal. Ronald Koeman was waiting for the sack.
As Koeman marched out of Goodison Park's press room, he remarked witheringly, "Write what you like". It was the clearest sign that Everton's disastrous start to the season, following a £140million summer outlay, had caused his patience to snap.
Five months on, the figure standing before us at Dutch football's headquarters in leafy Zeist — a small town 25 miles south of Amsterdam — cuts a very different figure in terms of how he looks and speaks.