Had things worked out differently a few years ago Jarek Fojut would have been playing for the other team in Sunday's League Cup final but it was not to be.

Cruciate ligament damage, suffered while still playing for Slask Wroclaw in his native Poland after he and his agent had agreed a pre-contract with Celtic meant the deal was terminated in 2012 and the central defender was left to reassess and rebuild his career along with the damaged joint.

It was one of those moments that test a man's character, but Fojut, only half-jokingly, suggests that it is the strong woman in his life who can offer the best assessment of that.

"That is not for me to decide, you would have to ask my wife. I hope I was OK," he said of his demeanour during the period of rehab he underwent before reviving his career with a spell at Norwegian side Tromso.

Whether stoicism comes naturally to him or was developed as a result he seems to have dealt commendably with what was a massive setback.

"It was a disappointment at the time but I don't think about it now," he says.

"At that point I had just won the league with my Polish team and was celebrating with my wedding a few days after it happened.

"It happens, not to many players, but it happens... Right now I cut the past. It doesn't matter what happened before.

"I am now in the exact position I want to be in, which is just a few days away from a cup final.

"Every football player would want to be in this position, looking ahead to such a big game.

"So I am really happy that I am here and pleased with how my career has gone."

Given the emphasis placed by many modern coaches and sports psychologists on the capacity to stay in the moment Fojut's attitude seems to exude that capacity, making him an ideal individual to have around at Tannadice in this week of all weeks as the club strives to deal with the fall-out of last weekend's cup tie against Celtic while preparing for another and then two more meetings with the champions and league leaders in the week thereafter.

Far from seeing it as the second match in what was originally an unprecedented - in football - series of three and has now become a series of four against the same opponents, he asserts, with some conviction, that this is a unique encounter to which last Sunday's will be irrelevant.

"I am looking at this game the same way as I did the first one in the Scottish Cup," said Fojut.

"I am looking forward to going out and winning the match.This will be a different game than it was at Parkhead when we lost 6-1, or the one in December at Tannadice that we won 2-1 or the cup-tie at the weekend that we drew.

"We are looking to lift the cup and it doesn't matter what has happened before.

"This will be different because it's a final and, really, anything can happen on the day.

"We will just focus on ourselves. We will go all in and try to do our best."

"It has been easy to move on from that. I don't get paid for analysing games.

"The coaching staff talk about what has happened and, as a player, I take it game by game."

Of course even before Sunday's controversies there was an extra element to these matches generated by Celtic's recruitment of Stuart Armstrong and Gary Mackay-Steven, the players widely considered to be United's most dynamic creative forces.

Many of the team's supporters believe there was an element of cynicism in the way that the most financially powerful club in the country effectively undermined opponents who, at the time, were contesting all three domestic competitions with them.

Whether or not it was a deliberate ploy there was a worrying reaction from the club they left as United suffered their worst league run of the season, however

again Fojut is philosophical in putting the situation in perspective.

"For the last couple of years United has been a club that has sold their best players so it wasn't a surprise for us," he observed.

"Everybody knows what happened but we just have to get on with it.

"If they were here or not our determination to win the cup would be exactly the same."

All concerned, then, can learn considerably from the man who has suffered real footballing adversity.

"As I said, it doesn't matter now," said Fojut of the prospect of facing the club he once thought would help launch his career at the highest level.

"Even if that hadn't happened I would still be very hungry to win the cup and doing everything it takes to win it."