Mauro Icardi to Man Utd: The transfer everyone wants to see!
Daniel Edwards
- 10 Aug 2022 17:30 BST
- 4 min read
Time is running out for Manchester United. The faltering Red Devils need a striker and fast.
Whichever way the never-ending saga surrounding Cristiano Ronaldo turns out by the end of the summer transfer window, and all indications suggest that it could still go either way, United do not have enough strikepower to mount a title challenge or most likely even strive for the top four.
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Sunday's Premier League opener against Brighton suggested as much. Erik ten Hag suffered an intensely disappointing debut, watching his team taken apart in a 2-1 defeat in front of a jeering Old Trafford crowd.
The manager would have seen plenty of weak points that must be improved upon. A defence that continues to give up too many chances; the unwieldy midfield axis of Fred and Scott McTominay which should have been put out to pasture long ago.
But perhaps most worrying is that, with Ronaldo or without him, or even when Anthony Martial regains fitness, the goals needed to win close games are simply not there.
United's only way to the net on Sunday was through Alexis MacAllister, who put past his own keeper in a chaotic goalmouth scramble.
That is clearly not a sustainable situation, and desperate problems sometimes require desperate solutions. So why not just embrace the chaos and move for Mauro Icardi?!
Such a transfer obviously has a huge potential downside. From the Argentine's turbulent, intensely public marriage to Wanda Nara, who also acts as his agent, to his repeated fallings out with authorities at Inter and Paris Saint-Germain he possesses more baggage than your average transatlantic flight.
But Icardi is available, squeezed out by PSG's galaxy of forward superstars. And based solely on what he can do in front of goal, he is streets ahead of any of the other candidates for the role and indeed, with the exception of Ronaldo, anyone in the United squad.
Last season aside, when his appearances were severely limited, the forward has consistently scored at a rate of a goal every two games or better throughout his entire career. At his best, he can be even more lethal: 29 in 36 during 2017-18, 20 in 34 in his debut PSG campaign.
Compare that to Marcus Rashford, whose strike-rate last year was a miserable one in six, or Martial's two goals in 23 appearances in 2021-22, and Icardi suddenly does not seem like such a bad option.
The least-bad option?
His track-record off the pitch, makes him a massive risk for United, of course, but no more so than the parade of mediocre talent which has marched through the doors of Old Trafford over most of the last decade. And if the alternatives are of the calibre of Marko Arnautovic, why not take a chance on a man who could either work out spectacularly, or be a spectacular failure.
Above all the media circus that follows Icardi's every move would do much to take the focus off the club's own failings.
Instead of articles panning United's latest performances the headlines would be filled with the latest Mauro and Wanda antics, the interminable Instagram accusations and counter-accusations, Nara's struggles to adapt to life in sunny Manchester after Milan and Paris.
Ten Hag would have the perfect smokescreen at hand to distract the press, behind which he could work to really put a winning team together free of the scrutiny and pressure that usually goes with the United job.
It is time to roll out the red carpet, then, and welcome football's most conflictive power couple to Old Trafford. Maybe a dose of healthy madness is just what United need to finally turn the corner, and the PSG man can definitely provide that.
