It will be the £72m striker against the £63m striker at Old Trafford on Monday night, and it could be another eye-opening evening for Manchester United's recruitment in recent years.

Alexander Isak arrived at Newcastle the same summer as Erik ten Hag took over at Old Trafford. While United were forcing through an £85m move for Antony in the final days of the 2022 window, the Magpies were signing Isak for £63m. A year later United had to move for a striker and spent an initial £64m, rising to £72m, on Rasmus Hojlund, a fee that is yet to look like value.

Countless column inches have been devoted to United's toothless attack, and after a bright beginning under Ruben Amorim, it has ground to a halt once again. An outlay of £108.5m on Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee has produced five Premier League goals. In contrast, Isak has 11 in 16 league games this season.

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The Swede will be licking his lips at the chance of adding to that tally at Old Trafford against a United side who have lost four of their last five Premier League fixtures. United desperately need their own attack to click.

In signing Hojlund and Zirkzee, they have gambled on potential, but what they have at the moment is inconsistency. Zirkzee has flattered to deceive and already looks ill-suited to Amorim's system.

Hojlund has shown more promise, but for every bright game, such as his double against Viktoria Plzen, he has games where he disappears from view and finds it hard to influence matches. At 21, he is far from the finished article, and United need a more complete striker.

Amorim has taken to rotating his strikers, and although it's a very simple analysis, there are times when you watch Hojlund and think Zirkzee should start and then times when you watch Zirkzee and think Hojlund should start. What they wouldn't give for a striker of Isak's class.

United stepped away from any effort to sign Harry Kane in 2023 because they didn't want to deal with Daniel Levy. They didn't try for Ivan Toney in the summer, even though he cost only around £15m more than Zirkzee and would have guaranteed more goals.

Signing a goalscorer is one of the hardest things to get right in football, but United have had their chances to do just that. In the window when Isak moved from Real Sociedad to St James' Park, they weren't directly in the market for a No.9, but perhaps they should have been.

It was already clear that Anthony Martial and Cristiano Ronaldo's days were numbered, and the chance to land a player of Isak's ability for a reasonable fee should have been seen as good forward planning. Instead, they became fixated on Antony and were taken for fools by Ajax.

Having ruled out paying £60m in July, they coughed up an extra £25m by the end of the window as things got desperate. The Brazilian has proven to be one of the worst signings in Premier League history.

With Marcus Rashford now in exile, United's squad desperately lacks goals. Bruno Fernandes has 85 for the club, but then Hojlund and Alejandro Garnacho are next on the list, with 23. Nobody has a better scoring record than one in three, which isn't going to take United anywhere near where their ambitions lie.

For Newcastle, Isak has 47 goals in 86 games. That's why they are pushing for the Champions League, and United are talking about relegation battles.