Manchester United’s frantic search for a striker culminated in them securing a dramatic deadline day emergency loan deal for the former Watford striker, Odion Ighalo, after balking at Bournemouth’s £35 million valuation of Josh King.

United have agreed to loan Ighalo from Chinese Super League side Shanghai Shenhua until the end of the season.

The deal - which will cost United around £4m in loan fees and wages and does not include an option to buy the Nigeria striker in the summer - brings an end to manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s desperate search for attacking reinforcements following the loss of top goalscorer Marcus Rashford with a serious back injury.

Ighalo, 30, who scored 16 goals in 55 Premier League appearances for Watford before leaving for China in 2017, was still stranded in Shanghai on Friday but he is scheduled to fly to Manchester in the next 24 hours ahead of a medical.

He was originally booked on a flight from Shanghai on Thursday morning but it was unable to take off due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, which has led to the Chinese Super League season being postponed indefinitely and prompted the player to be offered to United among others.

Tottenham Hotspur were also in for Ighalo but the striker - a boyhood United fan who told Telegraph Sport in an interview in 2016 that he grew up idolising Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole - favoured a move to Old Trafford.