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"Malcolm's got a lot of history, and he knows how people can win," says Jackson. "He structures things around what people are capable of doing. He'll never give you anything he doesn't think you can do.

"One of his key strategies is the amount of time he makes you spend on your conditioning. He used to say that he'd want you to be able to go into any training group in the world and be able to handle the work, whatever they threw at you.

"That sort of feeling gives an athlete enormous confidence. If you've worked hard and you haven't had any serious setbacks, you feel wonderful going to your blocks - especially when you've seen what your coach has produced in the past."

Greene is a genuine contender for gold in Barcelona

Greene initially found Arnold's methods counterintuitive. "I started off doing a lot more slower stuff in the winter, a huge amount of volume but not much intensity, and that felt strange. I felt sluggish.

"Then, as summer came round, we stepped up the intensity. For the first time ever I felt myself getting faster with each race I do, from the end of May onwards. Now I feel like I'm going to go above and beyond what I did last year."

Greene is an ardent student of the 400m hurdles, in the truest sense of the phrase. He has completed a 10,000-word dissertation of his event, and spends time studying the techniques and training of hurdling greats from down the years.

That knowledge and understanding, believes Jackson, has been key to the success of the Greene-Arnold partnership.

"Malcolm likes his athletes to be very vocal with him, both in training and competition. It's a two-way thing, not a dictatorship - it's not the coach saying 'this is what you do, I don't want to hear anything else'. It's 'how do you feel, what do you think you can do to improve, what makes you feel sharp, is this working for you technically, do you feel more confident working this way...' And it seems to work.

"Malcolm never actually ran the event, so he doesn't know what it feels like to cross a barrier or to come off a barrier. He can visualise it, but he hasn't felt it. So he needs that feedback from his athletes, so when you tell him something he can visualise it and then tell you how it will work."

"You get a lot of 400m hurdlers who finish a race and say, I don't know what went wrong there, and the coach will be trying to explain where the problem is but they can't see it," says Greene.

"I do find the event very interesting, and I give regular feedback to Malcolm, and I think he appreciates that - we find it very easy to work with each other as a result."

Another essential part of the training group is Greene's fellow Welshman Rhys Williams, son of legendary rugby winger .

"We and Rhys have trained together for a year. It's great for us - we're very different athletes, but we're both very competitive. It's great having your closest rival in the UK training with you - it keeps you honest, and if I'm having a bad day he keeps me sharp."

At the Europeans in Gothenburg four years ago Williams served notice of his talent by picking up a surprise bronze. Greene endured a rather different championships, but in that experience learned several priceless lessons.

"It was my first senior comp. I underperformed there. I was third in my heat and went out, and although I wouldn't have made the final with a personal best, I should have been running about half a second quicker.

"That was confirmation that I wasn't good enough. I learned a lot about preparation too - I'd tapered off too much that time, and I felt very lethargic during the race."

The Greene of 2010 is a very different athlete. After setting a PB in the semis of the Worlds to reach the final, he is now comfortable running against the best in the world. After he set a season's best in the Diamond League meet in Lausanne, former world champion was fulsome in his praise: "He's becoming a great athlete, he's phenomenal for his age and will improve over the years."

Greene shrugs his shoulders. "It's great competing against those guys on a regular basis because that's where I feel I belong.

"Running against the best in the world does bring out the best in you. I think my performances have been better this season as a result of it."

As a teenage winger Greene was offered a contract with . He turned it down. Here, in another city obsessed by football, he is ready to reap the benefits.

"There probably is more expectation on me, but I'm quite good at coping with it. I don't feel it, and I don't think about it too much. I'll go there and execute as well as I can.

"I'm coming into some good form , and I'm getting faster all the time. It's been going really well. It's been going very well."