Former Man United star tells Ten Hag he needs to sign “the next Wayne Rooney”

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Former Manchester United striker Michael Owen has suggested that his old club’s priority in the transfer market at the moment should be a young striker in the mould of Wayne Rooney.

The pundit believes the Red Devils don’t have a reliable enough goal threat in their squad at the moment, with Cristiano Ronaldo almost 38 years of age, while the likes of Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and others have been inconsistent.

Although we’ve seen some recent improvement from Rashford, he’s never managed 25 goals in a single season in his entire career so far, and Owen believes they now need to invest in someone who can be their next Wayne Rooney.

Rooney joined Man Utd from Everton as a teenager in what was a big-money move at the time, as it was clear he looked set for stardom at the very highest level.

It’s not easy to find a new Rooney too often, but Owen believes that’s where United’s focus should be right now for the next phase of Erik ten Hag’s project.

Could Ten Hag do with signing an upgrade on Rashford?

“Cristiano Ronaldo obviously isn’t getting any younger and is not going to be there for another four, five years,” Owen told AceOdds, as quoted by the Metro. “You never know, it might be his last season.

“So from that point of view, you do wonder where goals will come from. Marcus Rashford has always been a goalscorer but never been absolutely prolific.

“Martial has had lots of chances over time. He’s never been really prolific and scored into the twenties, let’s say.

“So I think in terms of scoring goals, that’s where Manchester United will have to address it at some point.

“Defensive-wise, they’ve invested over the years. I think the full-backs are still a little bit of a question mark.

“They spent a lot of money on the likes of [Aaron] Wan-Bissaka and [Luke] Shaw, and they probably wouldn’t be in the team at the moment.

“But, I think when you’re Manchester United, you’re probably looking at the next Wayne Rooney, the next 18, 19, 20-year-old old.

“If you’re going to buy somebody they need to nail that position down for the next decade.

“But there’s nobody really out there at the moment that they’ve done that with. So they’ve had to bring players in like Casemiro, like Ronaldo, very much the here and now. But they might need to be replaced.”

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1 Comment

  1. Haaland was the next Rooney…they don’t come round often, you don’t just go out and buy ‘another Rooney’ because there ain’t one.

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