Manchester United have been linked with a move for Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins, and they have form for signing veteran goalscorers…
We know these days that players are on the wrong side of the hill once they leave school, but some oldies have shown there’s still life (and goals) in the old dogs once they sign for Manchester United later in their careers.
Watkins is 29 and he would certainly be an upgrade on what the Red Devils currently have up front. Even though he is pushing 30, that didn’t stop these permanent striker signings from making a big impact at Old Trafford…
Edinson Cavani
Few United fans cared that Cavani was 33 when he joined United amid the madness of Covid times. For free, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer signed PSG’s then record goalscorer with a tally of 200 in 301 games. It was a much-needed boost a few days after being humped 6-1 at Old Trafford by Tottenham.
Cavani took on the No.7 shirt and made a better fist of living up to its iconic billing than anyone else since the first coming of Ronaldo. Helping United to a runners-up finish in the Premier League – an achievement only recognised in hindsight – the Uruguayan scored 10 league goals and 17 in all competitions, despite having to come off the bench almost as often as he started.
Signing a new one-year contract, Cavani could be forgiven for thinking he had done enough to be trusted to lead United’s line. But then, the second coming. Not only did Ronaldo take the starting spot Cavani wanted; he took the shirt of his back too.
Now 34, Cavani seemed to take it all rather personally. For Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick, his appearances were sporadic and his goals even more so. He was hardly alone in going through the motions for Rangnick, but the desire to get out of Old Trafford was more thinly disguised than most.
Cristiano Ronaldo
Yes, it all came to a rather unsavoury end, but Ronaldo’s return didn’t seem such a bad idea when he finished the 2021/22 season as the club’s top scorer with 24 goals in 38 appearances, including some big moments in a generally wretched campaign.
Granted, it wasn’t hard to shine in a team that got Solskjaer sacked and barely bothered to tune in to Rangnick, the interim replacement. He didn’t do much in the way of pressing, but what did anyone expect? Especially while he was surrounded by younger pretend pressers, who made Rangnick rip up his philosophy after approximately 45 minutes of his first match in charge.
Top scorer and Player of the Season in his first year back at Old Trafford, Erik ten Hag’s appointment got Ronaldo’s back up. He was picked to start just once in the new manager’s first eight Premier League games, a role never compatible with Ronaldo’s ego.
Rather than keep things in-house to preserve his legacy, Ronaldo took a scorched earth approach to manufacturing an exit. He sat down with Piers Morgan to criticise, well, everything. He wasn’t wrong about many things, but the inevitable mutual consent was reached to allow Ronaldo to move into semi-retirement in Saudi.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Ibra may have been 34 when he strutted into Old Trafford for a reunion with Jose Mourinho, but there were few signs of the veteran slowing down. He joined United on the back of his most prolific season ever in which he bagged 50 goals in 51 appearances for PSG.
Zlatan was… Zlatan. He was United’s top scorer with 27 goals, netting at crucial times during Jose’s Aldi Treble. He would have scored more had his season not been brought to a premature end by a serious knee injury with a month still to go.
The injury delayed the signing of another one-year contract, but by the time Ibrahimovic was fit, United had signed Romelu Lukaku, who took his starting place and his No.9 shirt. Hardly suited to a stand-in role, Zlatan was allowed to leave Old Trafford in March to join LA Galaxy. But his first season in red is one of pitifully few fond memories for United fans in recent years.
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Robin van Persie
There’s a theme among these veteran strikers: brilliant in their first season; far less so after that.
None of the above, though, were as inspiring as Van Persie in his maiden campaign at Old Trafford. He did have the advantage of playing for Sir Alex Ferguson, but even accounting for that, the Netherlands striker’s impact was almost Cantona-esque.
In the wake of losing the title to Manchester City, signing Van Persie from Arsenal was a statement in itself, with City also interested in the Gunners skipper once he identified Arsene Wenger’s side were going nowhere fast. ‘The little boy inside was screaming for United’, as Van Persie put it, so Fergie made sure he got there ahead of his noisy neighbours.
It was decisive in United wrestling back control of Manchester and the Premier League, albeit briefly. Van Persie, evidently born to play at Old Trafford, scored 26 league goals to claim the Golden Boot as well as his first title.
Then, to Van Persie’s horror as much as anyone else’s, Ferguson retired. He still hit double figures for David Moyes and Louis van Gaal in the following two seasons, but the onset of the post-Fergie funk was as a swift as it is stubborn to shift. “Moyes was not to blame – anyone who came in after Ferguson, good luck to you,” said Van Persie after he retired. “It was not only him to blame, it was us as well. The standards were so high but they dropped.”
Teddy Sheringham
Bucking the trend somewhat, Sheringham struggled badly in his first season at Old Trafford. But it all worked out rather well in the end…
Sheringham signed up for the impossible job: replacing Eric Cantona. At 31, the England striker was a year older than the retiring United skipper who left impossibly big boots to fill.
It probably didn’t help that he barely spoke to his new strike partner Andy Cole. He failed to hit double figures in the league, which was relinquished to Arsenal. So when Ferguson signed Cole’s best mate at the start of the following season, the writing looked to be on the wall.
Sheringham played in fewer than half of the Premier League games as United regained their title, scoring only twice, but the veteran scored career-defining goals off the bench in the FA Cup final and Champions League final to make himself a hero of the Treble.
Even his third season at Old Trafford was a personal struggle – he scored six goals in all competitions. It was only at the fourth attempt, aged 35, that he bagged double figures in the league (15) while breaking the 20-goal barrier in all competitions for the first time, winning the PFA Player of the Year along the way.
