There are plenty of Manchester United fans who will have been pinning their hopes on Paulo Dybala arriving before the close of the Premier League transfer window on Thursday. It has been a summer of frustration for many of them and the news that United have decided to no longer pursue a deal for the Juventus striker will do little to alleviate that.

Yet, for those cursing United’s decision to walk away from a potential swap involving wantaway striker Romelu Lukaku, it is worth remembering what happened the last time an Argentine moved to Old Trafford when his heart was not really in it.

Angel Di Maria joined United for what was then a club record £59.7 million fee amid much excitement and anticipation in August 2014, just three months after helping Real Madrid lift the European Cup with a man-of-the-match performance in the final against arch rivals Atletico.

Less than a year later, he had been sold to Paris St-Germain for a small loss, leaving behind a pitiful highlights reel and a lot of questions. There were problems on the field with United’s manager at the time, Louis van Gaal, and off it, notably when his mansion in the affluent Prestbury area of Cheshire became the target of an attempted burglary. But the blunt reality was Di Maria ended up at a club, and in a city, where he did not want to be and - no matter a player’s talent - that is no starting base for a happy marriage.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will have detected similar worrying signs regarding the Dybala situation over the past week and, at a time when the United manager is trying to rebuild a sense of identity and oneness at a club that has lost its way in recent years, the logic of pulling the plug is perfectly sound, even if it does mean other problems remain unresolved.

After joining Manchester United on a five-year deal, Di Maria left after a season credit: Getty Images

Di Maria did not want to leave Real and the same is true of Dybala with Juventus, where the striker feels he is effectively being forced out. Bringing on board a player in those circumstances would have contradicted Solskjaer’s claims about wanting footballers who are fully committed to United’s cause, all the more so if Dybala’s enforced arrival had come at exorbitant cost both in terms of wages and agents’ fees.

United are not as attractive a proposition as they once were to the best and brightest talents but recent history should tell them all they need to know about the perils of going down the mercenary route.

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Indeed, United fans probably don’t even need to look as far back as Di Maria for the alarm bells to start ringing. Had Alexis Sanchez’s move from Arsenal not ultimately boiled down to money, he would probably have joined Manchester City - not United - last year. Five goals in 45 appearances and a string of insipid showings later, how does that deal look now?

It is doubtless another reason why Solskjaer - who would offload Sanchez if there was a club out there willing to foot the bill - has misgivings over Dybala, even if he was a talent the manager admitted back in March “we don’t need to scout”.

Whatever the opinions on United’s moves for Daniel James, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Harry Maguire this summer - and they are wide-ranging - few doubt that they were all desperate to play for the club. If United are going to dig themselves out of the large hole they find themselves in, they will need quality, for sure, but they will also need players who are prepared to fight that extra yard. They are less likely to do that if they don’t really want to be there - or are coming for the wrong reasons.

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If not Dybala, though, then the obvious question on the lips of many United fans is who? United are still committed to offloading Lukaku regardless, and will hope Inter Milan find the money to fund a move after having a £54 million bid rejected last month, assuming Juventus do not pull an ace out of the hat. Lukaku has never won over the Old Trafford faithful and relations between the Belgian and Solskjaer are strained but, with 42 goals in 96 appearances, he has still been United’s best guarantee of goals over the past two seasons. Mario Mandzukic’s name was also discussed as part of a potential Lukaku/Dybala exchange but it remains to be seen what happens there.

The noises coming out of Old Trafford are that Solskjaer will not make a signing for the sake of it and, encouraged by the emergence of the 17-year-old Mason Greenwood and determined to give youth its chance, he is prepared to go into the new season with Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, Sanchez and Greenwood as his strikeforce.

Given Solskjaer’s obvious mistrust of Sanchez, Greenwood’s age and inexperience and Martial’s deeply inconsistent form, that would place a huge onus on Rashford, who has never scored more than 13 goals in a season for United. It would also make it imperative the England striker remains fit. There is little doubt such a gamble would represent a huge show of faith in Rashford, Martial and Greenwood - and no one on these shores should turn their noses up at young English talent especially being given a chance to shine at the country’s big clubs - but there would be an awful lot riding on it for Solskjaer.