"The coaches would come to the back and it would be, 'you're on the bench,' or 'oh, you're not on the bench.' It became a bit of a running joke in front of everyone," Gosling tells newcastleunited.com. "Steve Stone would tell us - it is no slight on Stoney. It was the manager's decision; he just had to deliver the news to everyone.

"I was still young, a little bit naive, and I probably should have stood my ground a little bit and said, 'nah, don't take the p*ss now', do you know what I mean? But I never did. I wasn't that type of lad. It was quite embarrassing. It didn't make me feel good. It was delivered like being on the bench was doing me a favour. I never felt appreciated.

"But I can say that I left with my head held high. I gave it 100 per cent in training every day. I never walked through sessions. I did my extras, my gym, I looked after myself the best I could. I learned a lot about myself and stayed true to being a professional."

Gosling left United on the expiry of his four-year contract having played just 36 times for the first team. He started only five Premier League games, scoring once. It was impossible to shake the feeling of what might, and perhaps ought, to have been.

***

When Gosling arrived in the summer of 2010, United felt they had pulled off a coup. True, he was injured, but he was also one of the most coveted young midfielders in the Premier League.

Gosling had just spent two seasons at Everton, having debuted at 16 in the Championship for Plymouth. In February 2009, in front of the ITV cameras, he curled a shot past Pepe Reina late in extra time in the Merseyside derby to help Everton progress in the FA Cup. They reached the final, eventually losing to Chelsea despite Louis Saha's first minute strike.

"I didn't understand the magnitude of it," he says of the goal. "I gave my shirt to teammate Jose Baxter after the match. I was on cloud nine and not thinking straight. Tim Cahill gave me the ball after the game and I had it for years but lost it when moving.

"I wish I had kept the boots. I got the shirt back from Jose and it is framed in my house. Even all these years down the line, I still get Everton fans tell me they'll never forget that goal. I just wish we'd won the FA Cup because it would have meant so much more."

Gosling's split from Everton became acrimonious. "It all got out of hand, really," he explains. Having ruptured his cruciate knee ligament in March 2010 against Wolves, Gosling waited for a new contract to be offered. The injury removed his bargaining power, and so he "sat tight and waited for the club to decide what to do."

An offer had to come by mid-May or Everton would risk losing Gosling without being entitled to a fee. The deadline came. The deadline went. Everton later stated that they felt they had agreed a verbal deal with Gosling's agent. This was refuted.

For Gosling's part, his intentions were clear: he wanted to be a central midfielder at Everton. He knew that he was not front of the queue, but simply wanted assurances that he would have the opportunity to train in the role, to learn, to grow. However, manager David Moyes did not see Gosling operating in that way and told him so.

"Honestly, we tried to stay at Everton even just before we went into the courtroom in London," he recalls. "We tried to come up with a contract on a bit of paper. But I just didn't feel valued with the offer.

"The press said I was being greedy, but that was far from the truth. I wanted equality with some of the other younger players in the squad. I didn't feel I was valued like them, even though I was playing just as much and being a huge part of what Everton were doing."

Gosling rejected the at-the-door offer. He knew that his legal claim was sound and that a clutch of clubs were jostling for his signature. "Phil Neville used to say, 'the grass isn't always greener' and that the money would come. But it really wasn't about that. Obviously, being young and earning good amounts of money is amazing. But I didn't leave Everton because of the money.

"It was the value and David Moyes didn't see me as a centre midfielder, ultimately. That's where I wanted to play. I wasn't even training there, so I wasn't actually getting better in my natural position. I was filling in. It was great filling in because I was getting games. Being a utility guy is good, but my goal was to play in central midfield, and David Moyes didn't see me as that. That was a big factor in it. I thought, 'what's the point of me staying here?'

"But I loved it there, I loved the facilities, I loved Liverpool. Ideally, I would have stayed."

Amongst those courting Gosling were West Ham but, having been raised in the west country, London didn't appeal. He agreed terms with United, albeit there was the opportunity of a dramatic twist. "Steve Bruce came in really late to try and get me to Sunderland," he says. "But I'd given my word to Newcastle a few days earlier. I couldn't go back on that and then go to their direct rivals!"

Gosling arrived on Tyneside in 2010 with everyone well aware he was still far from full fitness. "It wasn't easy," he admits. "I was on my own, completely on my own. My family were a long way away and I wasn't really connected with the players - largely because I was on separate timescales.

"When you go into a new club, you break the ice on the training pitch, in the warm-ups you have a laugh and a joke, but I'd just come off crutches. I was there but didn't really feel part of it. The boys looked after me, but I didn't feel part of the team. I couldn't offer anything - that was the annoying thing. I was just concentrating on getting back."

United were on tour in Dublin when he arrived. He flew out, desperate to integrate, but even that presented its challenges. His knee swelled up during the flight and he had to start again with a new physio team, one that didn't know his history or the work he had done during the nine weeks since his operation.

Soon Chris Hughton, who had chased him so hard, was gone, replaced by Alan Pardew. By January 2011, Gosling was fit enough to be named among the substitutes for the Tyne-Wear derby. Sixty seconds after Gosling came on, Asamoah Gyan bagged a 90th-minute home equaliser.

Surgery to clear scar tissue made that his only appearance of the season, with Gosling's next game also coming at the Stadium of Light in August 2011. This time Ryan Taylor's free kick was lifted up and over Sunderland's wall to give United victory.

A few days on, Gosling started at Scunthorpe in the League Cup. An opportunity. Finally. But on a turgid night, away blushes were spared by Taylor's late equaliser and Sammy Ameobi's extra time winner.

"I had an absolute stinker," Gosling admits. "But I got chucked in the deep end, really. I hadn't played for so long, I didn't feel valued, I didn't feel confident. I was putting so much pressure on myself. That Scunthorpe game lived with me a lot. I just couldn't pass the ball five yards."

Gosling is not seeking sympathy. He is simply telling his truth. Professional football can be an isolated place when it feels like the tide is pushing against you.

"I wanted to impress the manager," he continues. "I wanted to impress everyone. I knew I was good enough, but it was a game where nothing went for me. That puts you back six to eight weeks - everyone is thinking, 'he's had his chance, and he fluffed it'."

The sense of loneliness built. "There were maybe one or two conversations, but nothing like, 'look, you're doing really well, keep going and you'll get your chance.'"

Gosling ascribes no fault to anyone for his United spell not working out. If anything, he is critical of himself. His first league start came down at Norwich in December 2012. After 65 minutes, he was sent off for two yellow cards on what proved a difficult day for United. "I went to close Russell Martin down, and he's kicked the bottom of my foot - I got a second yellow for that. It just summed up my time at Newcastle."

James Perch and Danny Simpson filled in at centre-back against peak Grant Holt and the hosts won 4-2. The Carrow Road dressing room walls felt like they were closing in.

"It was difficult," he recalls. "I don't know whether the lads felt sorry for me or didn't care or what, but I knew I messed it up for myself. Obviously not on purpose and I felt like it was harsh but still..."

Gosling had to wait some 481 days before he was next named in a Premier League XI.

As a fledgling coach now - Gosling manages Watford’s under-18s - he can "understand" how he was treated to an extent. "It's a high-risk job for managers picking players and you need ones you can trust. Ultimately, I never gave them a reason to trust me."

It says much for his time on Tyneside that Gosling's highlight was a three-month loan spell at Blackpool in late 2013. "Playing under Paul Ince was great," he says. "I loved it there. The facilities and the food were bang average. I had to wash my own kit, but it was a breath of fresh air. I was playing. For the first time in four years, I was playing every Saturday and found some rhythm."

That 14-game period, albeit brief, shaped his next move and ultimately his career. Eddie Howe, then Bournemouth manager, had his interest piqued and got in touch. Gosling knew that new terms would not be offered at United, and he spoke to Howe almost weekly. Given his own lack of playing time following his loan spell ending, the conversations were largely about Bournemouth's results.

Gosling hoped Howe would earn Premier League promotion, but Bournemouth missed the play-offs. He arrived on the south coast in July 2014 for pre-season training and "I knew from the first session how intense Eddie was, how demanding he was, how fit I needed to be."

Fit and punctual. Gosling found that out when he was tardy to breakfast during a pre-season trip to Austria. "That was a scary moment! He'd give you a stare. I had to go and apologise. Straight away I felt, 'that's different. I've not had that before. I need to be on it here.' That was probably my first negative encounter with him, but I could spin it into a positive. He'd put me in line already."

While Bournemouth won promotion, Gosling started just once in the Championship. "I probably didn't realise how good the players were going to be, either," he admits. Newcastle to Bournemouth was a big drop at that time, club-wise. I thought I'd stroll in and be in the team straight away."

It didn't help that he was struggling with a groin injury but also "didn't know how to play centre-mid. I've signed as a centre-mid, but I never trained there for years.

"So I'm just running into the box leaving my mate exposed, leaving big gaps behind me. But that's where Eddie's coaching came in. That was the first time in my life I was getting proper coaching, one-on-one. I learned so much, so quickly. It opened my eyes. I loved every training session. It took me six months, maybe a year really to understand the position and what he wanted."

In 2015/16, Gosling started 28 Premier League games under Howe. In all, he spent six campaigns at Bournemouth, five in the top tier, making 171 appearances (104 starts), scoring 14 goals and adding seven assists.

He loved working under Howe and Jason Tindall. "They do relax," he says when asked whether the pair are always switched on. "But I wouldn't say they relax on the training ground. As soon as you're through the gate on the training pitches, you're working. A lot of meetings, clips. Team spirit was key, so we had a lot of team bonding. But the group we had was very hungry, too."

Gosling begins chuckling. Newcastleunited.com asks why. Eventually, with a touch of reluctance, Gosling tells the tale that has just popped into his head about how Howe and Andrew Surman got stage fright when both were trying to use a very tight urinal at Chelsea. It was one of few times Howe switched out of matchday mode in the dressing room.

Amongst Gosling's Bournemouth teammates was former Newcastle striker Callum Wilson. "He was flying when we signed him from Coventry, but obviously he did his cruciate twice. His mentality is incredible, and his self-confidence is amazing.

"On a Friday in training we'd do rondos and possession drills, and you wouldn't want him on your team. The lads would get on him and he'd laugh. But it wouldn't affect him the next day. Whereas if I have a stinker on a Friday I'm thinking, 'I need a good start in the game'. It would play on my mind a bit."

Gosling also confirms that Howe's intensity is nothing new. "He's relentless," he says. "He'd already be watching a game back on the journey home. He's been doing it 15-odd years. Wow. A crazy, crazy work ethic.

"His training sessions were always different and fresh. A lot of really complicated passing patterns. You'd lose where you're meant to be. Then he'd go, flip it, and go the other side. And he's like, 'rotations are there, there, there, there, there. You go there, pass there.' I'm thinking, 'how do you know all this without even looking at paper or walking it all through?'

Sometimes the drills were so complex preparatory sessions were necessary. "He'd talk us through it in the meeting rooms. 'Look at the arrows, but only that arrow because the others aren't you'. There'd be five different coloured arrows all going in different directions. You might walk out onto the pitch, and there would be what felt like 100 mannequins out. It was never casual. You had to be switched on or you'd get found out."

Strangely, more than a decade after his departure, Gosling feels more attachment to Newcastle than ever before. There is the Howe factor, plus the fact he met his best footballing pals - Taylor and Perch - during his time at United.

"We played a lot of FIFA," Gosling says, before adding his regret at not filming their lengthy sessions. "There was a lot of anger, a lot of controls getting chucked around the room. It was quite serious. We could have been the main YouTubers, the first ones doing it. Everyone is doing it now but we could have been doing it in 2010!

"I look back and think, 'I wasted so many hours on FIFA. What was I doing?' I could have done so much more with my time. But you don't think like that at all when you're young. I wasted a lot of time but have a lot of good memories."

Newcastle is also where he met his wife, with whom he has three children. "I love watching Newcastle now. I feel like I'm closer to Newcastle than I was as a player. I worked with Eddie and his staff for seven years. It took me to move away to realise how good life was in the city. But ultimately, as a footballer you just want to play."