Michael Owen believes that Manchester United need to find "the next Wayne Rooney" in the upcoming transfer windows in order to improve their squad.
United have managed to recover from serious setbacks away at Brentford and Manchester City to push themselves into a positive position in the Premier League table. Erik ten Hag's side find themselves fifth in the Premier League, a point behind Newcastle with a game in hand over Eddie Howe's men.
However, one complaint about the Reds' recent form is the lack of goals coming from their strikers. Marcus Rashford attempted to rectify that on Sunday with his winner against West Ham but those goalscoring concerns remain.
ALSO READ: Owen addresses future United concerns
Discussing the next steps for United, Owen told AceOdds that signing a prodigious young striker should be their priority in the transfer market. "Cristiano Ronaldo obviously isn’t getting any younger and is not going to be there for another four, five years," he explained.
"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.
"[Anthony] 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. Defence-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.
"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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