After a painful start to the season, it’s a new era at Manchester United.
Erik ten Hag’s successor, Ruben Amorim, is now in the hot seat, and while his side got off to a flying start against Ipswich Town on Sunday evening, they were eventually pegged back, and had to settle for a somewhat underwhelming draw.
It was a disappointing reminder of how much work there is to do at the club to get them back to the pinnacle of English football, but based on his work in Lisbon, the Portuguese manager may well be the man to do it.
With that said, he might want to look into signing a new forward or two, as at the moment Rasmus Hojlund, Joshua Zirkzee and Marcus Rashford are being outscored by a former United ace sold by Louis Van Gaal.
Van Gaal's poor sales
So, before we get to the player in question, let’s take a look at another attacker sold by Van Gaal who went on to enjoy a stellar career: Ángel Di María.
The Argentine international joined United in the summer of 2014 for a then British record fee of £59.7m, and while many now look at his one season in the country as a failure, he did manage to rack up a reasonable tally of four goals and 11 assists in 32 appearances, which works out to a goal involvement on average every 2.13 games.
However, this was still slightly underwhelming considering his fee, and following a year in which his house was broken into, he fell out with the manager and his family was supposedly unhappy with the weather, the former Real Madrid ace left Old Trafford to join Paris Saint-Germain for £44.3m.
Over the following seven seasons, the 145-capped international would rack up 93 goals and 119 assists in 295 appearances for the Parisians before joining Juventus for the 22/23 season and then finally moving to Benfica in July last year, where he is today.
However, even though the 36-year-old is approaching the end of his career, he’s still showing the world how talented he really is, as last season he racked up 17 goals and 15 assists in 48 appearances, and this year he’s currently on eight goals and three assists in just 15 games.
PSG
295
93
119
Real Madrid
190
36
85
Benfica
187
40
46
Juventus
40
8
7
Rosario Central
39
6
2
Manchester United
32
4
11
It’s clear that the veteran forward still has plenty to offer, and he’s not the only former United forward to be outscoring the club’s current crop of attackers.
The ex-United ace still starring in the Premier League
The forward in question is Danny Welbeck, who joined United as a child and made 142 appearances for the club, in which he scored 29 goals and provided 17 assists before Van Gaal sold him to Arsenal for just £16m in September 2014.
The decision would come back to bite the Dutchman almost immediately, as in an FA Cup quarter-final at home to the Gunners, the Englishman scored the visitor’s winner, in a game which paved the way for the North Londoners’ eventual triumph in the competition.
However, over the following years, the Manchester-born ace would fall down the pecking order at the Emirates before joining Watford for free in the summer of 2019.
Unfortunately, another poor campaign, which eventually resulted in the Hornets being relegated, saw the striker once again have his contract terminated by mutual consent.
However, in October 2020, the 33-year-old joined Brighton & Hove Albion, and four years later, he remains a vitally important player for the Seagulls and is arguably in the best form of his career.
In fact, the 6 foot 1 marksman has been so good this season that United legend Gary Neville recently claimed he is “better than any current [Manchester] United front player,” and based on the numbers, it would be hard to disagree.
For example, in 12 league appearances, the 42-capped international has scored six goals and provided two assists. In contrast, Rashford has scored just two goals and provided one assist in 19 appearances; Zirkzee has scored one goal and provided one assist in 18 appearances; and Hojlund has scored one goal in eight appearances.
Ultimately, it would be silly to claim that the former United ace has a brighter future than any of the club’s current crop of forwards, but given his red-hot form and Amorim’s need to hit the ground running, we can’t help but wonder how effective Welbeck would be under the exciting Portuguese manager.
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