Man Utd Got Lucky With Edinson Cavani Signing That Doesn't Erase Club Failings

Manchester United have found the answer to their (short-term) prayers with Edinson Cavani, but all the veteran Uruguayan’s impact does is kick the can down the road for club officials who still have a major job ahead of them building a squad capable of competing for trophies.

Cavani made all the difference as United beat Southampton 3-2 in a comeback win in the Premier League on Sunday, coming off the bench at half-time to score twice and create the other.

The former Paris Saint-Germain star also scored a crucial late goal to seal a much needed Premier League win against Everton earlier this month and is starting to play an important role.

After a slow start allowed him to build up match fitness following six months without playing due to the way coronavirus impacted last season, Cavani has been widely praised for his natural instincts as a striker and his intelligent movement in particular.

The 33-year-old is what United have missed over the last couple of years and both of his goals against Southampton, two clever and instinctive headers that no one else in the squad could have scored, proved that. The early signs are of another Zlatan Ibrahimovic rather than Radamel Falcao.

In the short-term, United may have hit a home run by landing a proven goalscorer who is clearly not past his best on a free transfer and on a smaller contract than he had at his former club.

In the long-term it changes nothing.

If Cavani was 27, United can rest easy that they have a top striker for the next five or six years. That obviously isn’t the case and he will turn 34 in February. Even though he is considered a naturally fit player, perhaps even of the Ibrahimovic or Cristiano Ronaldo mould, time is limited.

United stumbled into landing Cavani precisely because they were unable to secure longer-term targets. In effect, his October arrival was simply a better executed attempt at the same move which saw Odion Ighalo join the club on loan from Shanghai Shenhua last January.

The issue of needing another striker has not gone away. United wanted Erling Haaland last January, only to lose out as the Norwegian prodigy chose Borussia Dortmund instead. That would have been the perfect solution but it didn’t happen and a long-term ‘number nine’ remains crucial.

Anthony Martial, as talented as he is, still drifts too much and isn’t clinical enough for that role. Marcus Rashford isn’t a ‘number nine’, despite the insistence from sections of the English media to frame him that way, while only time will tell what role 18-year-old Mason Greenwood will develop into – currently, he looks as though he will be another wide forward or secondary striker.

Cavani is fine. But United recruiters cannot afford to rest on their laurels and must be working furiously in the background to line up the next striker already. This time, it has to be long-term.

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