We went on to win three successive league titles and a CL shortly after Ruud was sold to Madrid.
If ever a sale was vindicated if was that one.
Clearly you didn't read rest of my post. Team in and around at the time meant Fergie could make that decision, Ole isn't blessed with same quality but yet decided to part with his best goalscorer. Going back to 2006, Rooney and Ronaldo were starting to approach their prime and we finally fixed our porous defence with addition of Vidic, finding a proper GK in VDS and rise of Evra. It's too simplistic a view to say Fergie sold one of his best ever goalscorers to replace him with a more mobile striker and won everything. Besides, Saha was a big sicknote for us and didn't play that huge a part in any of those 3 PL wins.
Difference is, Lukaku wanted out and a replacement couldn't be found, through lack of money or simply lack of options suiting Ole's style. I agree with Neville that we shouldn't have just thrown money at any old striker, which seems to be Souness' argument. I'd prefer to be in the situation we're in now, rather than have had Mandzukic, for example, who would have helped us through this brief period, but whose salary would have been another burden too offload in the near future.
Lukaku had wanted out since last April, rumors in Italy pointed a union with Conte at Inter. Ole, and rest of his team had ample time to find a replacement yet they didn't. We heard rumors about AWB, Maguire, James, Longstaff all summer long but we weren't linked with any striker by any reputable source for entirety of the summer. Want to know why? Because he wants to build a team around Rashford and Martial, Lukakus' 'replacement' would've been bench fodder just like him. Also, before you point out Dybala swap in August. He was never on our shortlist, because if he were we'd have know A) About his reservations B) His image rights issue. We were thrown an elite level talent in our laps by Juve, and to bridge the difference in value we asked for Mandzukic. The whole thing reeks of poor planning, which was precisely my original point and that of the SkySports panel with exception of Neville.