It`s all turned out very sad in my view for van Nistelrooy and Fergie.

van The Man scored 110 goals in his first three seasons in Manchester. He overtook Denis Law's title as the club's all-time top scorer in European competition in his fourth term, and, in his fifth year at OT, reached 150 goals in under 200 starts.

In July 1998, he signed for PSV Eindhoven from Heerenveen for £4.2million, a then record Dutch fee. In two years Ruud notched 60 goals for PSV, alerting United. So keen was Sir Alex to sign van Nistelrooy that he stayed in contact with the player as he recovered from a cruciate knee ligament injury sustained in training for PSV. That setback came days after failing a United medical in April 2000. He finally arrived on 23 April 2001 for £19m.

All that effort to bring him to Old Trafford, yet after just over 5 years he`s fallen out of favour with Fergie for whatever reason and has now departed. Such a shame. Can he be replaced?