Manchester United have a history of spending big money on strikers with varying levels of success over the years.
Ruud van Nistelrooy was signed for £19m in the summer of 2001, a year after a knee injury had scuppered the Dutchman's move to Old Trafford. A tally of 150 goals in 219 games yielded a Premier League title, the FA Cup and League Cup in five years before he was sold to Real Madrid.
Fast forward to 2008 and United shelled out even more on Dimitar Berbatov to prise him away from Tottenham Hotspur. Daniel Levy's negotiating tactics were on full show with this transfer with it completed late on deadline day - it is something that United are wary of and have not forgotten when it comes to a certain Harry Kane this summer.
Berbatov won a couple of league titles with United. His goal tally of 56 in 149 games was by no means earth-shattering but steady, and he hit the heights of 21 in his penultimate campaign with the Reds but was let go in the summer of 2012.
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That summer saw a changing of the guard for United as Robin van Persie was poached from rivals Arsenal. The £24m United paid for the Dutchman paid dividends immediately when the Premier League title was secured as Ferguson retired in 2013.
Jose Mourinho was put in a similar position four years later in 2017 when he parted with a large fee to bring in a new focal point for the team. £75m was parted with to bring Romelu Lukaku to United from Everton.
At a glance, Lukaku's goalscoring figures in the two seasons he was at United are not too bad at all. In nearly 100 games, the Belgian scored 42 times with a strike rate approaching one every two games.
But though Lukaku's numbers are not too shabby, his general build-up play was an issue and =it hampered United's fluidity. He was sold in 2019 to Inter Milan for roughly the same as United paid for him.
Erik ten Hag faces a similar decision to his predecessors at Old Trafford this summer. The striker position is a priority that United must fill above all others in the coming months.
United will no doubt have to part with a big fee this summer to get in who they want up top. Whether it be Kane, Victor Osimhen, Randal Kolo Muani, Rasmus Hojlund or somebody else, a fee around the cost or perhaps even more of Lukaku will need to be spent.
Ten Hag obviously wants a striker to score goals and take the pressure off Marcus Rashford. But he has already recognised that a new man up top must do so much more than put the ball in the back of the net.
Back in April, Ten Hag told Sky Sports: “Everyone is different, obviously, but for a striker the main thing is to score goals by any method, that is so far ahead of anything else.
“We need a striker who scores goals because we have ability in the team to put balls in the box, so we need a striker to finish.
“We have to build a new future and we need a striker who not only scores goals but contributes by linking up play very well and pressing, which is very important.”
And there, Ten Hag has proven he is set to avoid Mourinho's mistake with a more well-rounded striker in mind. Several of the aforementioned targets fit that bill.
Kane has become a master at dropping deep and almost playing in a number 10 role at times, creating for his team but still scoring plenty, such as the 32 goals he netted in a mediocre Spurs side in the recently concluded season. Kolo Muani scored 23 goals for Eintracht Frankfurt, but perhaps more impressive are the 17 assists he grabbed.
And Osimhen confirmed that former Napoli boss Luciano Spalletti went "crazy" when he did not play the role of being the Italian side's first defender. That will likely have been music to Ten Hag's ears.
United want a striker who does far more than just score goals. But fortunately Ten Hag is well aware of it and the potential targets they have in mind would do just that, with the likelihood of getting the decision wrong reduced when compared to how United ultimately fared when Mourinho brought in Lukaku and the team was missing a key facet.
A Manchester Evening News special souvenir edition - Fergie's First - charts United's 1992/93 title-winning campaign and you can get your hands on one here
