Manchester United fans have witnessed some incredible strikers at Old Trafford – and more than a few who didn’t quite make the grade.
Sir Alex Ferguson was able to call upon so many great strikers at Manchester United.
Brian McClair and Mark Hughes were regular goalscorers in the late 1980s before Eric Cantona became the hero of the 1990s.
Many managers would dream of options like Andrew Cole, Dwight Yorke, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Teddy Sheringham as United clinched an incredible treble in 1999.
Ruud van Nistelrooy, Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov, Robin van Persie… the list just goes on and on, with Ferguson managing to find great goalscorers on a consistent basis.
Some didn’t quite enjoy that same success though; Mame Biram Diouf, Manucho and Dong Fangzhuo were some of the more curious striking additions under Ferguson.
Photo by John Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images
Photo by John Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images
Rene Meulensteen on Diego Forlan
Then there is Diego Forlan.
United paid around £7million to sign Forlan from Argentinian side Independiente, as noted by BBC Sport, hijacking Middlesbrough’s move for the Uruguayan.
Signed at just 22, Forlan had scored 40 goals in 91 games for Independiente to attract Ferguson’s attention.
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Forlan failed to score in 18 games following his January 2002 arrival and was quickly branded a flop.
December 2002 saw Forlan become a United hero, though, as he scored twice to secure a 2-1 win at Liverpool.
Forlan only scored 10 goals in 63 Premier League games for United and was sold to Villarreal for just £2million in 2004, as reported by BBC Sport.
United took a £5million loss on Forlan, and Rene Meulensteen has now commented on the striker’s time at Old Trafford whilst speaking on the High Performance podcast.
Meulensteen was working in the United youth team at the time, but ended up doing individual coaching work with Forlan.
Meulensteen – Ferguson’s former assistant – admitted that Forlan had the potential to be a star thanks to his pace and versatility.
However, the Dutchman feels that United were simply ‘the wrong club at the wrong time’.
Forlan battled with the likes of Solskjaer, Van Nistelrooy, Louis Saha and then Alan Smith, leaving Meulensteen to believe that he just never really had a chance of breaking through at Old Trafford.
“Whilst I was sort of working at the academy at Manchester United, I started doing some individual work with Diego Forlan, who was at the club at the particular time,” said Meulensteen.
“Diego was a bit of a player that… I thought was at Manchester United, at the wrong club at the wrong time, because if you look at the squad that we had, the players that we had, Ruud van Nistelrooy was scoring one or two goals every game, so he was not coming out,” said Meulensteen.
“Diego was versatile; he basically could play every position on the front, but we had great players there as well.
“Diego had the potential to be a really, really good player; very, very quick, two great feet, but he didn’t really have a trick when he got into 1v1s, so I started chatting with him, started talking to him and I started working with him,” he added.
Diego Forlan became a star after leaving Manchester United
Forlan didn’t quite live up to his potential at United, but it was a different story in Spain.
59 goals in 128 games for Villarreal – including 25 in his first season – catapulted Forlan to stardom.
Atletico Madrid signed Forlan in 2007 and the goals continued to flow, smashing 96 goals in 198 games.
Forlan won the European Golden Shoe on two occasions and clinched the Pichichi Trophy twice before exploding in 2010.
Forlan was the top goalscorer at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, winning Goal of the Tournament and even the Golden Ball – the award for best player at the tournament.
Stints with Inter Milan, Cerezo Osaka, Penarol, Mumbai City and Kitchee followed before Forlan had a brief spell in coaching.
Forlan is now chasing a tennis career at the age of 45 and is no doubt loved as a cult hero by many United fans despite enjoying more success elsewhere.