EDIN TO THE TOP.. OR EDIN FOR ANOTHER FALSE DAWN? EDS OR FAILS!

FOR a club that has prided itself on its “cultural reboot” under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the signing of Edinson Cavani is an odd one.

Manchester United, we were told, were done with signing Galacticos such as Angel Di Maria, Radamel Falcao and Alexis Sanchez, and were instead switching to an emphasis on youth.

The summer-long pursuit of Jadon Sancho, 20, (right) was in keeping with that. But having failed to sign him,

United turned to a 33-yearold striker whose best days are clearly behind him.

With 341 goals in 556 club games, i n cludin g prolific spells at Napoli and Paris Saint-germain, and 50 in 116 for Uruguay, Cavani’s

BP pedigree is unquestionable.

Yet hi s recent injur y record suggests United may not have done their due diligence before agreeing to sign him as a free agent on £200,000 a week.

In the past two years, he has mi ssed 35 game s through injury or illness. Last season, he started just seven of PSG’S 27 league fixtures, scoring four times.

With a front three of Neymar, Kylian Mbappe a n d An g e l D i Ma r i a , opportunities for Cavani were always going to be limited. But he was too frequently injured to put himself in the frame.

Falcao arrived in 2014 in similar circumstances. He lasted just one season with four goals in 29 games before joining Chelsea.

Reds legend Ryan Giggs hop es hi stor y will not repeat itself. “We’ve seen S outh Americans w ho haven’t really come and done it like Falcao, Di Maria and Sanchez,” said Giggs.

“But Cavani , with his work-rate, you expect him to make it. United needed a centre-forward, that target man to score the goals and make that difference. Hopefully he can do that.”

The club insist the signing was a “no-brainer” as Cavani can improve their young forward trio of Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Mason Greenwood.

The reality could prove very different. Last season was Martial’s best since

Bringing veteran Cavani to Old Trafford looks like a huge gamble for Solskjaer

joining from Monaco in 2015, with 23 goals for the France striker, principally because he played consistently through the middle.

It remains to be seen what impact Cavani will have on Martial, a player who thrives on confidence and a run of games in a settled position.

Wi t h R a s h f o r d a n d Greenwood expected to continue to operate on the left and right up front, the obvious player under threat from Cavani is Martial . Time will tell whether Cavani is a shrewd piece of business or a vanity signing that wi l l b a ckf ire and endorse the view the club’s recruitment strateg y is inherently flawed.

Signing Dan Ja me s , Aaron Wan-bissaka, Harry Maguire, Br uno Fer - nandes and Donny van de Beek pointed to a forward-thinking approach. Cavani threatens to undermine that and set United back years, j ust when they seemed to have learned from the past, plotting a route back to the top with a young, hungry squad.