Pretty much. 9 goals in Italy and 50m is a bargain now. People are hopping up on "get young talented strikers" hype train. Its good but are we just going to spend 50m on "he might turn good"?
Rasmus Højlund | Signed for United
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A purple patch when he just turned 20 a few months ago?
I can’t even make sense of that.
There was a narrative in here a few weeks ago about us only signing the obvious players.
Now they’re shitting themselves because Man United are betting on youth. The one constant this club has had, even with Sir Alex retiring, and the fans are already bottling it.
He is full Danish international and already scores for their national team
Like I said, I’m not complaining. But I also realise this won’t be enough to challenge. Signing someone like Harry Kane obviously changes things & he would fit the system.
Okay, let's just hope our scouts are right this time.
Ain't the truth.
He’s already Denmarks number 1 St. That should say a lot. I think people are worried because he’s only had 1 season in a top European league, where as the likes of Haaland etc always go to Dortmund for a few seasons and improve there. The trouble is if we waited another year and he rips up the serie A then we’ll never sign him because he’ll be worth over 100m the following season. Trust the process… if ETH thinks he can get the best out of him and improve him then we need to let it happen. It’s a win-win for us. If he comes in and instantly starts banging in goals then his price tag rises quite a lot. If it takes him time to adjust then we just slowly get him into the team. He’s only 20. Time is on his side.
Real Madrid spend 40m on 17 year old Vinicius Junior when he has hardly even kick a ball in any top level games. They also spend around the same (40m) on 18 year old Rodrygo, who has only scored 17 goals in 80 games in Brazil league.
Sometimes when you see talent, you have to buy them earlier before they turn into another Haaland or Osimhen, and eventually become unattainable even at very high price.
Real Madrid is a bad example. They can always do these kinds of deals as they are loaded with cash. They wasted 150m on Hazard . We dont have unlimited funds so that's my concern.
To be honest being Denmark's number 1 isn't saying much at all. His competition is Jonas Wind and Martin Brathwaite.
Ye I agree. Think every single one of us would prefer Kane but they won’t sell to us unless we pay like 200m.
Who are more experienced though.
Who's the better prospect - him or Sesko?
Glad he’s left footed as we need more of these in our squad, he also looked comfortable with his right which is encouraging. How’s his heading ability as it didn’t show any of that in the clip?
If that's the criteria then bring back Elkjaer.
He may not have scored a tonne. But he’s a young striker and goals will come. What I think is most important is he’s already looking like a proper number 9 with his movement and his link up play. Having him will provide a concrete structure to our attack. Even though there are better players than Onana, Mount and Højlund. The balance of our team completely changes. Onana means we play with aa higher line and can break teams press. Mount brings pressing intensity and legs to the midfield. Højlund keeps CB occupied and opens space for Rashford and Antony to exploit.
The one thing I’d like to see is Højlund’s pressing stats. How much of a hard worker is he off the ball?
The one thing I’d like to see is Højlund’s pressing stats. How much of a hard worker is he off the ball?
I have no idea how that could be self-contradictory so do explain. A young player can't hit a run of good form and confidence?
Average I believe, but he’s 20 it could be worked on
There is nothing to suggest it’s a purple patch of form. That explanation would be about a player who’s either improving from a lower level or he simply hit a patch of form. He’s too young to have that thrown at him, he only turned 20 a few months ago.
I’d argue that a players attributes can’t be improved by such form, he either has the attributes or he doesn’t. He can’t press better, run faster, work harder etc because he’s in good form.
Edit not got a head for math but it looks like he has 56 goal involvement in 76 games worth of minutes.
That would be some run of form
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Very much enjoyed the 4 minute mark where he absolutely busts a gut to get in the box and gets his reward with a finish.
He looks like a player that can play across the front 3 with good agility and pace, will be interesting to see if we will sign a target man type striker with strong aerial ability to compliment the rest of our attacking options.
He's a wonderkid on FM23 with inpressive attributes. If that doesn't convince you, nothing will.
I don't think that should be a problem if Hojlund is managed correctly. You hope for the best but if he is struggling, you can take him out of the firing line and play one of Rashford or Martial in his place. The fact that we've got Garnacho and Sancho as options on the left should give us some flexibility in terms of how we use Rashford as well, so the expectation shouldn't be for Hojlund to carry us in every game.The biggest concern is that he has only played one season of senior football with Atalanta, in Seria A - a league not as intense as EPL, and we are going to put the pressure of being our main striker on a 20 year-old with that little of experience? His is not much more experienced than Garnacho, is he?
I am sure he is extremely talented, and exciting striker, but we need to take care of him and not just drop him into the deep end. We should have signed a senior striker who can stay fit, even if on loan, even if somebody possibly older and less exciting. Somebody to let Rasmus Højlund ease in.
Feck Glazers
I imagine the plan will be to go hard on Kane next summer anyway, provided he doesn't sign for anyone else in the interim, so it makes sense to go down the developmental route for whichever striker we sign this summer. We can't keep going for short-term fixes every summer, it's a bit farcical at this point.
The new rivalry in football.
Can't wait for having a proper striker at three club. He has all the attributes to make it here.
The scouts usually are, it's the recruitment team who are naff.
How does his style compare to Darwin Nunez? Sounds similar from what I've been reading here
I don't think buying Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo at 40m each are bad examples.
And we have already wasted more than Real Madrid over past 5-7 years regardless.
They share some qualities but I think Højlund is better at linking up with his team mates, or at least has the potential to be better.
I know we like to laugh at Nunez because he plays for Liverpool and when he misses sitters, and admittedly I love it when Liverpool's transfers don't deliver as expected, but most of us would be thrilled if he played for us.
We overperformed last season, y‘all please keep that in mind.
This coming season is about starting the season with a better balanced squad and fixing our biggest issues: goalscoring and playing out the back.
We do that, we should be able to challenge for top four. My personal prediction is: we overperform again and come in 2nd. It could easily go the other way though.
Sir Alex would not have had a 9 goals in the league 20 year old striker leading the line though.
Rooney was an absolute elite level youngster and even he wasn’t expected to come in and be the main man in attack. He had Ruud, Saha and Smith to shoulder the bulk of the responsibility.
SAF would be all in for Kane and Hojlund would be bought as a prospect not as our main striker.
We actually underperformed our xG by about 7 goals last season, which I believe would’ve gotten us closer to second place, if we had been on par with our xG.
By contrast both Arsenal and City overperformed their xG by c. 14 goals.
I agree that xG are not everything, but we clearly saw last season that our inability to score actually allowed opponents to get back into games and put us under pressure.
We didn’t over perform. We were terrible in front of goal in the league, underperforming xG. Had a poor away record against top half sides, and regularly took beatings away from home.
I expect us to fix some of these things and actually become more consistent
Yes. It‘s one of the things that needs fixing. We dropped points in games that should have been put to bed.
We definitely overperformed: virtually no one predicted us making top four.
Even SAF would not have performed miracles under similar circumstances
not only that there is a real shortage of top class strikers and the few that are, outside our current shopping range. Heck even average strikers are being quoted for 100m.
I don’t think you can lay the blame on Ten Hag or Murtough and his team. Lay the blame on the owners who can’t make quick decisions when it comes to money. Sooner they are gone the better
I think it was more a case of Liverpool and Chelsea drastically underperforming. I expect those two to be better, what with City and Arsenal up there, possibly Newcastle again, we could just miss out.
Kane who would cost upwards of 100 mill with one season left and a chairman that probably wouldn’t even sell him to us for that. SAF did go after players and miss out.
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