“Smile Joe!” a teammate shouts across the car park.

“This’ll be you soon!” Joe Hugill hollers as he finishes posing for an impromptu portrait in front of the Wigan Athletic crest.

Scrubbed boots glean under the LED lights in the main building. The communal room for players, with the obligatory dartboard on the wall, is empty. Some staff potter around the canteen and a few players are in the gym assessing their metrics with a fitness coach.

It is nearly half-past three on Tuesday and Hugill has been on the premises of Wigan’s Christopher Park training ground since 9am. He is still in training attire, having attended a gym session shortly before our chat.

Hugill, who celebrated his 21st birthday on Saturday, was absent again for Wigan’s trek to Cambridge as he recovers from an ankle injury. He is hoping to be back in the side for the visit of Mansfield on Tuesday night.

His family travelled down from Durham to celebrate his milestone. When Hugill signed for Manchester United as a 16-year-old, he was accompanied by his brother, who is still with him in the north west and attends every match he is selected in.

This is Hugill’s third loan away from United after spells with Altrincham in the National League and Burton in League One. He also spent work experience loans at Forest Green – when Rob Edwards was in charge – Barnsley and Blackpool.

He has a reasonable two goals in six League One appearances for Wigan. Their manager, Shaun Maloney, is pleased with his progress and felt teammates needed to seek out Hugill more during their opening matches before his breakthrough brace against Bristol Rovers last month.

Wigan have not conceded a goal in 630 minutes but have only managed nine goals in ten games. They are 16th in the third tier yet only three points off sixth, the final Play-off place.

Hugill is a warm presence and recalls our brief interaction during a media day for Manchester United’s FA Youth Cup final in April 2022. Four players from that side have debuted for the club and five have made matchday squads. Hugill is one of the five.

Ironically, his last appearance on the bench for United was at Wigan in the FA Cup third round in January. He had visited the DW Stadium before to watch Sunderland and played there for his boyhood club’s under 14s. His season-long loan was agreed on the eve of United’s pre-season tour of the United States.

“I’m really enjoying it,” he says. “A really good club. I settled in straight away. I played a few times in the (United) first team in pre-season, I always had Wigan there just kinda getting the deal sorted, whether that was before or after America and it was before. I got a few friendly games in here, which was quite good because I got to know all the lads.

“There were positives with both, going away and getting experience with the first team in America or coming here, getting started with the loan, being ahead of a few of the lads who came in later.”

Hugill’s eye for detail is so meticulous he relishes the DW pitch due to its vast dimensions compared with other League One grounds. He noticed it as a schoolboy in the Floodlit Cup with Sunderland, where he played with Jay Turner-Cooke, now at Newcastle.

“You come up against back fives, back threes, back fours, it’s how you adapt to it,” he explains. “Whether they’re deeper or high. When we played Bristol Rovers, it was a bit deeper, a smaller pitch, there wasn’t enough space in behind.

“But then you play at home at Wigan and you’ve got loads of space in behind on a bigger pitch for the league. It depends on who you come up against, what formation, how you want to play.

“He (Maloney)’s quite tactical and precise in how he goes about his work, which I really enjoy. He’s always helping me improve, where I can be in the box. I know that was a big one coming here – my positioning in the box, where he wants me in possession and out of possession, how high he wants to press.”

Erik ten Hag is a confirmed admirer of Hugill’s and promoted him to first team training at the start of pre-season last year. Hugill scored in United’s first friendly against Leeds in Oslo and came on against Lyon at Murrayfield a week later.

It was back in Edinburgh this summer when he went viral following a smashing strike past Rangers. One of the United media team’s pitchside members filmed Hugill receiving a detailed debrief from a delighted Ruud van Nistelrooy.

Running onto Maxi Oyedele’s threaded pass, Hugill struck first time from inside the ‘d’, the ball kissing the crossbar before rebounding out of the net. Van Nistelrooy made a habit of shooting first and asking questions later.

“He’s just a bit before my time,” admits Hugill, who was born more than two years after Van Nistelrooy joined United. “We knew of him, how he was one of the best finishers in the Premier League.

“That’s what we were joking about when I scored against Rangers, saying that I was watching him the night before. But I’ve really enjoyed working with him, having that figure to look up to was good for me.”

Did he actually watch Van Nistelrooy on YouTube? “No! I was just joking about it!

“He said how good the finish was, the movement to create the space for me, how composed I was and I knew what I wanted to do straightaway.”

Before Hugill joined Wigan in mid-July, Van Nistelrooy led striker sessions involving midfielders and attackers. “We did position specific on the pitch,” Hugill recalls. “A lot of the 8s running on, creating opportunities for the 9s with the crosses, different types of crosses coming into the box, where he wants the 9s to be. He did his own drills to help the forward players out.”

Hugill was at home in Durham when he received his first call-up to the first team squad at Everton in November. His father drove him and his mother down, stopping off to pick up his brother, who had touched down from holiday at Manchester Airport. “I text him that I’m in the squad. He came across for the game.

“He (Ten Hag) said go and enjoy it, take in all the experience, especially with it being a big Premier League game. Everton away can be quite hostile. So just take it all in.

“It was a good day. Garnacho scored the overhead kick as well! Could see that right from my eyeline! It was a good day. I wanted more from that day. Always wanted to be, what can I do now to keep that going?”

Hugill made the bench against Galatasaray (“We went out on the pitch and half the stadium was already full with them chanting and you’re thinking, ‘These are crazy!’), Bayern Munich and Wigan before he headed to Burton on loan in January, a move that coincided with a contract extension at United until 2026. His first Football League goal came at Derby, the venue of his maiden senior appearance for United in July 2021.

Earlier that year, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had mentioned Hugill unprompted on a Zoom call after he selflessly allowed Amad to take a penalty on his Under-21 debut. Hugill had already bagged two goals. “I worked well with Ole, especially with him being a striker as well, it helped me a lot.

“You always got a little buzz when the manager talked to you. But talking to the media as well and watching, thinking I wish I did take the penalty! But it was Amad’s first game against Liverpool and it did help him settle in as well.

“I had that pre-season with him in my second year (in 2021). I went down to London with them and that was my first time being around the first team for a couple of weeks, so I really enjoyed that. Michael Carrick and Kieran McKenna helped me a lot as well, and you look at what they’re doing now. You could always feel like they were top coaches.”

Hugill relished playing with Amad, Hannibal Mejbri and Anthony Elanga at U21 level during his first year in the academy. Success came in the second with the Class of 2022 in the FA Youth Cup. Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo were Hugill’s classmates.

“I love playing with Kobbie,” Hugill enthuses. “Especially playing centre mid as well, he hasn’t changed the way he plays, he dictates the play and the way he carries the ball, he just finds the passes as well.”

Garnacho signed for the United academy the same summer. “You could always see he (Garnacho) had it in him. He was settling down for the first year. We signed Marc Jurado and Alvaro (Fernandez) as well that year, so that helped him being with the Spanish [lads].

“But you could see him coming out of his shell a little bit, you could always see he had the ability to kick on and he was just waiting for that right time. He came as quite a small, young lad, but he’s playing in a man’s body now.”

Mainoo, Garnacho and Oyedele are three members of the Class of 2022 to have attained international caps after Salford-born Oyedele, now at Legia Warsaw, started for Poland against Portugal last week. Fernandez was the man of the match for Benfica against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League and Charlie McNeill is at Sheffield Wednesday.

United have invested more than £100million in strikers Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee yet their goal difference is still in minus territory. Hugill, a snip at £300,000 from the Sunderland academy, retains the belief he can become United’s frontman.

“Kick on as much as possible,” he says of his aim this season. “Garnacho, Kobbie, that’s what everyone wants to be doing and to be United’s number nine is every young lad’s dream. I always back myself 100 per cent. Always 100 per cent going for something.”

That would give him something else to smile about.