In recent years, the failed deal that has made many Man United fans regret the most is Erling Haaland. The Man City striker was targeted by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer when he was just 17 years old.
There was a time when RB Salzburg asked for Haaland at 94 million Euros and Man United refused. Looking back now, if Salzburg had to pay double that amount, with what the Norwegian star has shown, 94 million Euros is too cheap.
After the bombshell deal with Erling Haaland, Man United once had another star who could play as a center forward and was a "homegrown player" - Mason Greenwood. Unfortunately, when his talent was at its peak, this young star was involved in a huge scandal and was forced to leave the Premier League to find a place at Getafe (Spain) and now Olympique Marseille (France).
Currently, Man United owns a pair of strikers with a total value of nearly 110 million pounds, Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee. However, the disappointment for both is so great that in the recent match against Crystal Palace, Ruben Amorim even let Kobbie Mainoo play as a "false 9", instead of naming Hojlund or Zirkzee in the starting lineup.
Talking about the level of Man United compared to the top teams in the Premier League at the moment, in addition to the position they hold on the rankings, the number of goals scored after 24 rounds can also be used as a measure. Liverpool has 56 goals after 23 matches while Man United has only 28 goals after 24 matches. There are 4 teams that are scoring fewer goals than Man United when playing the same number of matches, 3 of which are in the relegation group including Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton, the remaining team in this group is Everton.
In the past 11 seasons, since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, Man United scored an average of 61 goals/season. During that time, Premier League champions scored an average of 90 goals/season. The highest was Man City with 106 goals in one season, they also scored 102 goals in 2 seasons. In the last three seasons, Pep Guardiola's team scored 96, 94 and 99 goals/season respectively. Man United's greatest success in terms of scoring during this period was only 70 goals/season.
When Amorim used Mainoo as a "false 9" and failed, there was some criticism aimed at the Portuguese captain. This showed how miserable Amorim was when he had two strikers but could not use either of them. In the press conference after the defeat to Palace, when asked how he would feel if Marcus Rashford scored continuously after joining Aston Villa, Amorim answered very cleverly.
"There's no shame in that. When you loan a player out, you have to expect him to improve and get better. That's positive, there's no shame in that."
Looking back at Man United's past after the Sir Alex era, all the world's famous strikers came to Old Trafford when they were about to step over, or were already on the other side of their careers. One by one, names like Zlatan Ibrahimovic (34 years old), Edison Cavani (33 years old), Radamel Falcao (28 years old) or Cristiano Ronaldo (36 years old). Ironically, most of those who seemed to have passed their peak were mainstays of the attack, not young stars.
Perhaps at this point, Amorim should bring in a veteran, instead of betting on expensive but not valuable stars like Hojlund or Zirkzee?
