Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reveals why he did not replace Romelu Lukaku after the Belgian was sold off to Inter Milan in the recently concluded Transfer window.
Romelu Lukaku spent the entire summer urging Manchester United to shift him out of Old Trafford. The big Belgian had made his desire to move to Inter Milan known. However, the Italian club fell short of United’s valuation and talks stalled after.
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Inter’s rivals, Juventus soon joined the fray and Turin seemed a possible distraction. A swap deal involving Paulo Dybala was discussed. However, talks broke down after the Argentine’s exorbitant demands turned off United.
It began to seem that Lukaku would spend the season at Old Trafford. However, Inter swooped in with a new bid. The £73million offered was still lower than United’s demand of £80million. Manchester United relented though and Lukaku’s future is in Italy now.
The deal happened the night before the transfer deadline. Giving United one sunset to find a replacement for the Belgian. United instead chose to make no purchase despite being linked with Mario Mandzukic.
The reason behind United not pursuing any other striker has now surfaced and 17-year old Mason Greenwood happens to be in the centre of it.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reveals why he did not replace Romelu Lukaku
Speaking to reporters ahead of Sunday’s Premier League opener with Chelsea, Solskjaer said:
“It was time now for Rom [Lukaku] to go, because I think we got a good deal, he’s happy, so I think both parties ended that deal as it should be.
“Rom was injured for a while this pre-season; didn’t participate, so I just hope for him he’ll get a good start at Inter.
“Of course, Rom has a good record and stats. He’s one of the top number nines around when you want to play with that kind of striker, a target man.
“For me, I’m very confident that we’ll get goals from [Anthony] Martial and [Marcus] Rashford, [Daniel] James will create, I’m sure Jesse Lingard will get more. We have a different attacking set-up this month.
“Towards the end of last season, we didn’t score a lot of goals and you do think players will have [more of] an impact.
“And Mason Greenwood’s pathway would have been a lot more different if we had another forward there. I believe Mason is going to be playing and involved a lot; and when he is, he’s going to score goals.”
It is somewhat baffling to see Solskjaer put his entire managerial hat on the line for the development of a youth player. However, this is not the first time a United manager placed his faith on youth players. Fergie’s fledglings and Busby babes being the two notable groups of youth who were introduced into the first team by previous managers and went on to achieve much success,
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