Rasmus Hojlund, a Danish superstar, was acquired by Manchester United from Serie A team Atalanta for almost £72 million during the most recent summer transfer window, putting an end to the Red Devils’ hunt for a new number nine.

The hope will be that young Hojlund can get right to work after his return from international duty. Manager Erik ten Hag was forced to muddle through last season with Anthony Martial and Wout Weghorst as his senior center-forward options due to Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure.

In reality, the Red Devils have been in desperate need of a long-term answer for that position at number nine for a number of years. Too often, they have looked for a temporary fix by signing players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Edinson Cavani, and that man, Ronaldo.

Old Trafford has been in desperate need of a prolific presence to lead the line in the hope of resurrecting those earlier glory years ever since Robin van Persie propelled Sir Alex Ferguson and company to the Premier League title in 2012/13 with 26 top-flight goals.

In the case of Hojlund, the 20-year-old must avoid a scenario akin to that of Romelu Lukaku, United’s last high-profile center-forward acquisition, who underwhelmed both during and after his time in Manchester.

What did Manchester United spend to acquire Lukaku?

After scoring 17 league goals during a season-long loan with West Bromwich Albion in 2012/13, the towering striker first caught the attention of Premier League viewers. He is best remembered for scoring a hat-trick to thwart Sir Alex Ferguson’s farewell match in the 5-5 thriller at the Hawthorns on the final day of that campaign.

The former Anderlecht player then scored 15 league goals while on loan at Everton the following season, and after joining the Toffees permanently in 2014, he went on to score 87 goals overall for the club.

Former United manager Jose Mourinho, who had previously coached Lukaku at Stamford Bridge, had evidently seen enough of the 6 foot 3 juggernaut over the preceding five years to be impressed. Mourinho was eager to reunite with his former asset at the Theatre of Dreams in the summer of 2017.

As it turned out, the Antwerp-born goal machine was eagerly accepted by the Red Devils for £75 million, and his two goals in his league debut for the team seemed to indicate that Mourinho and company felt the money had been well spent.

Why did Lukaku’s time at Manchester United go awry?Even if he didn’t exactly make the impact that was anticipated, Romelu Lukaku’s first season at Manchester United wasn’t all that bad. In 51 appearances across all competitions, he scored 27 goals and contributed nine assists; Ten Hag will probably consider himself lucky if Hojlund can reach even a fraction of that total.

However, the underperforming player wasn’t just a burden in front of goal. Former champion Lee Sharpe was particularly critical of the forward at the time of his hold-up play, saying, “I’ve never seen a center forward with such a terrible touch.

It becomes very difficult to win the game if your center forward is unable to hold the ball up.

The Norwegian treble winner preferred a more fluid forward line in the second half of the 2018–19 season that included players like Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford, contrary to Luckhurst’s prediction that the marksman would “doubtless benefit from being coached by [Ole Gunnar] Solskjaer” (who predicted that the player would “doubtless benefit from being coached by the Norwegian)).

After the 2018 World Cup, Lukaku said he had “bulked up too much,” and club icon Gary Neville later said the departing attacker was “overweight” as he prepared to join Inter Milan in 2019. This decline had been somewhat influenced by Lukaku’s own admission.

What price did Man United get for Lukaku?To their credit, United, a team that has historically had trouble offloading players while dominating Europe in net spending over the past ten years, was able to return virtually all of their initial investment in Lukaku after selling him to Italy for £74 million.

The record scorer for Belgium sold to San Siro, where he recovered his scoring form, netting 47 league goals over the next two seasons while winning the Scudetto with Antonio Conte’s team in 2020–21.

Despite his inconsistent results at United, such a stellar run of consistency caught the eye of Premier League clubs, and Chelsea agreed to pay a staggering £97.5 million to wrest Lukaku away from them in the summer of 2021.

What is Lukaku currently worth?The £325k per week player only lasted one season back in England before returning to Inter on loan last summer, so the Blues must be cursing themselves for making such a significant investment in him only to have it blow up in their faces. He has 109 caps for his country.However, Lukaku’s return to the Italian powerhouses did not turn out to be a happy one as he managed just 15 goals across all competitions last season after falling behind Edin Dzeko in the attacking hierarchy. The 30-year-old later soured his relationship with the Nerazzurri after it was claimed that he was in talks to join rivals Juventus in the most recent transfer window.

The Belgian is once again under Mourinho’s cautious eye at AS Roma, and his value has plummeted to the point where, according to CIES Football Observatory, he is now only worth €30 million (£25 million), which is £49 million less than what Solskjaer and company sold him for just four years ago.

The club did win the jackpot by being able to move on from Lukaku so fast and without incurring a significant financial damage, which would suggest that even though it hasn’t been mentioned much in the post-Ferguson period at United, the less said about his time there, the better.