As Manchester United fans filed out of Old Trafford yesterday, their club dumped out of both domestic cups at the first hurdle for the first time since the 1981-82 season, many were left bemoaning the fact that one of their former strikers had played such a key role in their misery.
Danny Welbeck’s strike in Brighton‘s 2-1 FA Cup third round victory on Sunday was his eighth career goal in all competitions against United – his joint best record against any opposition, prompting former teammate Phil Jones to say United fans would “take him back in a heartbeat”.
BBC Sport looks at the Premier League players who have caused most trouble against their former employers.
To qualify, they must have both played for and scored against the club since the 1992-93 season (league games only).
Cole scored with his first chance in his first game against Newcastle after Man United had forked out a then-Premier League record fee of £7m to lure the England striker from the Magpies in January 1995.
He went on to bag 11 goals in 18 top-flight games against Newcastle for Man United, Blackburn and Manchester City – including a memorable four-goal haul in a 5-1 win at Old Trafford in 1999-00 as he helped the Red Devils to the fourth of his five league title wins.
Cole is fifth in the league’s all-time goalscoring list with 187.
New Zealand captain Wood was a bit-part player for Leicester City in 2014-15, scoring just once before dropping down a division to join Leeds United, while the Jamie Vardy-inspired Foxes went on to land an unforgettable title win under Claudio Ranieri.
Since then, Wood’s old-school centre-forward play has yielded great success against the club he helped to the Championship title in 2013-14. He has netted eight times in 13 games against Leicester for Burnley, Newcastle and his current club Nottingham Forest.
The Premier League’s all-time top scorer with 260, England legend Shearer won his only piece of silverware at Blackburn Rovers, netting what was a record-equalling 34 times in the 1994-95 campaign as Kenny Dalglish’s side pipped Man United to the title.
But he didn’t show any mercy for his old friends in east Lancashire once he left for St James’ Park in July 1996 for another then-record fee of £15m.
What followed was seven goals in 12 appearances against Rovers for his hometown club, although that was only half as good as his record against the team where he initially made his name.
Shearer scored a whopping 14 goals in 22 Premier League games against Southampton.
However, all of his league appearances for the Saints came in the old First Division.
Harry Redknapp’s public defence of a young Frank Lampard in his early days at West Ham is as famous as it was prophetic. But even Redknapp couldn’t have predicted the extent of Lampard’s future goalscoring exploits – he is seventh in the league’s all-time list with 177, the only midfielder in the top 10.
After a stellar spell in east London, Lampard crossed the capital in June 2001 and never looked back, lifting 13 major trophies at Stamford Bridge, including three league titles.
He found the net seven times in 19 games against the club where his dad, Frank Lampard Snr, is a bonafide legend, one of which was a rare, twice-retaken penalty in December 2009.
The mercurial Frenchman helped Arsenal to a league and FA Cup double in his first full season in English football in 1997-98, and finished as their top scorer the following campaign before departing for Real Madrid.
However, his Premier League adventure was far from over. Anelka initially returned to these shores on loan to Liverpool, before going on to accrue seven goals in 15 games against the Gunners for Man City, Bolton and Chelsea, where he won another league title and two FA Cups.
The only player to feature in this list twice, Anelka’s one-time France teammate Saha had a particular penchant for visiting his former clubs.
He scored six in 13 games against Newcastle, where he enjoyed a loan spell in 1998-99 – three times for Fulham, twice for Tottenham, and once for Manchester United, where he won two league titles and a Champions League.
He bagged the same number against Fulham, where he was the First Division’s top scorer as the Cottagers romped to the title in 2000-01; three for Man United, and three in the blue of Everton.
Before his FA Cup heroics on Sunday, Welbeck was already the ex-United player to have caused them most trouble in the Premier League.
The Manchester-born Carrington graduate has six league goals against the club he helped to title glory the last time they won it in 2012-13. Two of the six were for Arsenal and four for Brighton. That leaves him well clear of Wilfried Zaha (three), Mark Hughes, Fraizer Campbell, Mark Hughes, Keith Gillespie and Paul Ince (all on two).
Ex-Norway forward Joshua King has a very respectable five goals against United, although neither of his two senior appearances for the club came in the league.
Second only to Shearer on the all-time Premier League list, all 213 of Kane’s top-flight goals came for Tottenham. England’s record scorer did, however, have a brief loan spell at Norwich City in 2012-13.
No goals in five games during an injury-hit spell at Carrow Road meant Canaries fans never saw the best of Kane – well, not until he faced them for Spurs. Kane plundered six goals in just five games against Norwich, including a pair of braces in 2015-16.
Shortly after being recalled from Norwich, Kane went back on loan to Leicester City, scoring twice. Since then, 18 goals in 16 top-flight games against the Foxes makes them his favourite opposition – but he only played for them in the Championship.
Defoe, who is 10th on the all-time Premier League list with 162 goals, made his name under Harry Redknapp at West Ham, before departing for Tottenham in February 2004.
And the predatory striker wasn’t shy about showing Hammers fans what they were missing. All six of his goals against West Ham came during his two permanent spells at White Hart Lane, where he won the League Cup in 2007-08, a trophy that remained the north London club’s last major honour until they tasted Europa League success last season.
