Andy Cole criticises Manchester United’s transfer strategy that could change with incoming bid

English star Andy Cole has lashed out at his former team for their knack of targeting ageing strikers in the last couple of years.

Over the years, Manchester United have had targeted quite a few strikers who were all way past their primes.

From Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Edinson Cavani to the bitter sweet return of Cristiano Ronaldo and more recently Wout Weghorst joining the squad last year, United haven’t spent in acquiring the services of a young striker, to combat their goalscoring problems.

Although the iconic trio of Ibrahimovic, Cavani, and Ronaldo, all playing their part in coming in handy with some crucial goals while they donned the United shirt, none of them spent more than two years at the club, thus forcing United to loo for reinforcements every alternate year.

Andy Cole, who spent more than a decade in the Premier League scoring over 100 goals, was recently in New Jersey and commented on United’s bizarre knack of buying ageing strikers.

The former striker asserted that buying older strikers isn’t something Manchester United should be doing.

“We’re buying older centre-forwards for a hell of a lot of money and then find ourselves in the same position a couple of years later,” he said.

“This is Manchester United – we’re better than that. I’m not going to say that if Harry Kane became available for the right money I’d turn him down, obviously not.

“But I think what Manchester United have been doing for the past five or six years is bringing people in who are in their mid-30s or late 30s for a couple of years, then we do it again the season after and we do it again.”

The 51-year-old, who also played for the other side of Manchester as well as Newcastle United, said that, due to this tendency of looking for stop-gap solutions, Manchester United haven’t really found themselves a decent young striker yet, who could spearhead the attack for at least half a decade.

“That’s why we’ve found ourselves in this position now. Long-term, we’ve not looked for that young centre-forward who can carry Manchester United on for the next five to 10 years or whatever it may be.

“That’s what Manchester United has been built on – the manager going into a season with three or four strikers.”

However, with the Red Devils’ pursuit of Rasmus Hojlund from Atalanta picking up its pace, Cole’s wish might come true in the next few days.

It has been reported by Alfredo Pedulla that United will table a £52 million bid, plus add-ons, for the young striker very soon.

At just 20 years of age, Hojlund is raw but also has great potential to be a long-term no.9 option at Old Trafford.