Mark Hughes has insisted that Romelu Lukaku 'will face a different challenge' should he swap Everton for Manchester United this summer, but expects the striker to make a big impact at Old Trafford.
The Belgium international appears to be on the brink of joining the Red Devils in a £75m transfer, despite the rumoured advances of former club Chelsea.
Stoke City boss Hughes believes that Lukaku has fully proved that he has the talent to succeed at United, where he will be asked to fill the void of recently-departed striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
"It's been in the offing for a while it seems," he told Sky Sports News. "There's been a lot of discussion in terms of which club he was going to go to. There's been a lot of talk about Chelsea but it looks like he's going to go to Manchester United.
"From the outside, it looks as though Everton have already been spending the money they're going to accumulate - it is a big chunk of money, you have to say. In fairness to the boy, for a number of years, he has been scoring regular goals at the top level of British football.
"Given that Manchester United have lost Zlatan, they clearly had to address that and they've gone for Lukaku. It will be a different challenge for him. Everton are a good club - I've played at both clubs. Everton are very much a family club, United - clearly since I left - it's gone on to become even bigger on the world stage and it's a huge entity now.
"Maybe he'll find a little bit of a difference in that but his day-to-day work will be similar and I'm sure he'll be a great success there."
Lukaku has scored 71 goals in 133 games for Everton since joining permanently from Chelsea in 2014.
Daniel Lewis
