Romelu Lukaku reveals when he informed Ole Gunnar Solskjær of his decision to leave Manchester United

Romelu Lukaku has revealed that he informed Ole Gunnar Solskjær about his intentions to leave Manchester United in March 2019. The Norwegian had just been appointed on a permanent basis at the time.

“Solskjaer has my eternal respect. He understood me when I said in March that it was time for me to leave England. I have been in the Premier League as an 18-year-old boy, and now I am 26. Solskjaer wanted to keep me, but I was ready for something new.” said Lukaku [H/T Het Belang van Limburg].

The former Chelsea and Everton striker was not at his best last season and came in for a lot of criticism from the United faithful. The striker was keen on leaving in the summer, but the Red Devils were not willing to sell him for cheap.

Inter Milan finally snapped him up after a lot of drama, with Juventus getting involved as well. Reports suggested that the Red Devils were close to agreeing a swap deal involving Lukaku and Paulo Dybala with the defending Serie A champions.

However, things did not go according to plan and United had to sell the Belgian striker to Inter for a club-record fee of €80 million. Following Lukaku's departure, United have been left with just Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial as the senior strikers in the squad as they failed to sign a replacement for the Belgian.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Arvind Sriram