I would genuinely take Nunez over him, and Nunez is utter tripe.
That missed chance was unforgiveable, it's a shot I'd expect from a central defender.
That missed chance was unforgiveable, it's a shot I'd expect from a central defender.
11
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 39
- Goals
- 11
- Assists
- 2
- Yellow cards
- 2
I wasn't comparing anyone. Read the posts properly.
There is also a reason you're not working as a scout. You'd struggle to see world class talent in Kane at the age of 20. It's not like players don't have potential because a random redcafe member can't see it ffs
No, it doesn't put that to bed. You literally just found out he underperformed his xG by some random chart Samid posted
If you watch our football games, you know he doesn't get a lot of chances.
It's pretty obvious that he is not a prodigious talent that we all want him to be. We again got rinsed by a club and paid 2.5x-3.0x more than his actual worth. He is a trier and a hard-worker but he doesn't have that natural goal scoring instinct that most top talent posses. Take Greenwood for an example, it was clear from day one that guy was a born goal scorer, which unfortunately Hojlund is not. His touch is also very iffy. And what I have observed from watching football for years, it doesn't dramatically improve throughout a players playing career.
However, he is still young and will improve quite a bit from what he has displayed so far. For now, we need to get Toney or someone who can be the main striker for this club and Hojlund can learn his trade as a back-up and develop. The weight of expectations is going to kill him if we don't get a #1 striker in the January window.
However, he is still young and will improve quite a bit from what he has displayed so far. For now, we need to get Toney or someone who can be the main striker for this club and Hojlund can learn his trade as a back-up and develop. The weight of expectations is going to kill him if we don't get a #1 striker in the January window.
This must be sarcasm?
I dont disagree with your thoughts on him, but statistically we can’t really say if he’s a bad or a good finisher here yet. He’s had next to no service at all and like every statistic you’d need around 100-200 units of samplesize to actual make any real assesment and to adjust for luck.
He needs some service and chances, also just to develop really. It’s our own fault if he doesn’t develop and you gotta question why we’ve spent so much on a striker if we don’t intend to play him. We could have saved the money and just thrown McTominay up front with the same result.
Yeah, same as Ajax paying 18M for Antony. If we'd bought Hojlund for 20M (Atalanta spent 17M) and spent 25M on getting Antony from Brazil, we'd be in much better shape. Need to start getting these guys at the right time.
To be fair even FC Copenhagen didn’t rate him highly in Denmark. He wasn’t considered a special talent by anyone. It would have been absurd for us to sign him then.
It's now Xmas and he's not scored in the league. He needs to take a penalty in our next few games to get that monkey off his back.
Caftards focus too much on missed chances (rightly so tbh) when for me the biggest issue is the simple controls and ability to bring other into play. That's the most basic aspect of a CF play that he struggles massively at. He is physical and that's it, no hope of building any attack with him if the ball constantly rebounds off him
Last edited:
Which part do you think is sarcasm? That he would flourish at City? Halland doesn't participate in buildup much. He is instructed to get on the end of attacking patterns of play. And they are meticulously planned he knows where he needs to run and other attackers know where they need to put the ball. After scoring a few he would be more confident and would look like a beast of attacker in this City team. In our team he makes the runs but 9/10 he doesn't get correct service to capitalize. From scraps he could score a few true but he will get there.
This is my biggest problem with him right now, last season Weghorst showed how important a striker who gets involved in the build-up play is to the team.
A lot of other teams are buying cheaply top talent and then loaning them out. We are terrible at this. Hopefully Mitchell can come in and improve our pipeline to the first team as well as buying ready made talent.
I'm sorry he's been much better than Weghorst fir me. He's in a team going through a very difficult moment with no one providing service. He started off very good I thought goals in CL and did hold up the ball well, his confidence has prob been hit a bit but still does Mike's more than Weghorst who came into a team full of confidence.
Man, some of you are going to be so disappointed and angry when it finally dawns on you.
I like him and might come good but he is far from ready to lead the line for a club with our ambitions. We need to get an striker in January and maybe loan him out so he can develop without the pressure.
Should score there 
Get an experienced striker in January and give this guy some rest/time to perform without pressure.
Get an experienced striker in January and give this guy some rest/time to perform without pressure.
Trust me pal you're not that guy
Completely shot for confidence. To be fair seing how much hate he gets even from our own fans its no wonder. You even have idiotic posts wanting us to play Martial instead.
His goalscoring in the Champions League and his recent international record gives me a glimmer of hope that he might turn out into a decent goalscorer despite his league woes, but his all-round game has been disappointing also to say the least. I get that as an attacking unit we are dysfunctional at the moment, but he is arguably hindering rather than helping that.
At the moment he basically needs bang average defending from the opposition and plenty of space to run into to even look like scoring or a decent footballer. His recent international record is great but the opposition were nothing to shout about, and hence him actually looking half decent in the CL. Galatasaray and Copenhagen were so bad and open defensively that we should really have scored twice as many against them and qualified with ease. I'm not blaming Hojlund for that, he actually took his chances there which is what gives me the glimmer of hope, it was the rest of the team that let us down.
So yeah, there is a goalscorer in there, but does seem pretty doubtful that he's the right type of striker for us long term due to his lack of other attributes. Unfortunately the most obvious example of a comparison I think of with a similar track record of scoring against fodder, but failing against organised sit back defences is Lukaku. He still destroys Europa League defences and International teams, but looked more dangerous in the Premier League during his time at West Brom or Everton than he ever did with us or Chelsea, I think mostly because of how the opposition sit back against the 'big' teams, preventing the likes of Hojlund and Lukaku from having the space for their equally impressive first touches let alone getting shots away.
It's frustrating because I had been duped into believing he was a promising link up and hold up striker when we signed him, but I've seen nothing of the sort yet.
At the moment he basically needs bang average defending from the opposition and plenty of space to run into to even look like scoring or a decent footballer. His recent international record is great but the opposition were nothing to shout about, and hence him actually looking half decent in the CL. Galatasaray and Copenhagen were so bad and open defensively that we should really have scored twice as many against them and qualified with ease. I'm not blaming Hojlund for that, he actually took his chances there which is what gives me the glimmer of hope, it was the rest of the team that let us down.
So yeah, there is a goalscorer in there, but does seem pretty doubtful that he's the right type of striker for us long term due to his lack of other attributes. Unfortunately the most obvious example of a comparison I think of with a similar track record of scoring against fodder, but failing against organised sit back defences is Lukaku. He still destroys Europa League defences and International teams, but looked more dangerous in the Premier League during his time at West Brom or Everton than he ever did with us or Chelsea, I think mostly because of how the opposition sit back against the 'big' teams, preventing the likes of Hojlund and Lukaku from having the space for their equally impressive first touches
let alone getting shots away.It's frustrating because I had been duped into believing he was a promising link up and hold up striker when we signed him, but I've seen nothing of the sort yet.
It's not a matter of hate. In my opinion (or our opinion), Højlund doesn't possess the required skill set to succeed in the English Premier League. Last season, I was against signing Derwin Nunes because of his technical limitations, which would hinder him in this league. Towards the end of the transfer window, I was also against signing Amadou Onana due to his limited technical abilities. Despite McTominay being our biggest goal threat, I would drop him the moment we have enough able-bodied midfielders.
I am a fan of Højlund and I truly hope that he can break the team's goal-scoring record and lead us to win several titles. However, it is not fair to ignore his technical limitations which could be detrimental to the team's performance. This is similar to when people used to say that Ronaldo was not holding the team back.
We desperately need an experienced striker to take the burden off him a bit.
I do like him a lot, but it's going to take a lot of time with him, and having Martial as the back-up won't cut it.
I do like him a lot, but it's going to take a lot of time with him, and having Martial as the back-up won't cut it.
Martial probably scores that chance to be fair.
Martial also ruins our press and offers less defensive effort than a random retirement home resident...
There are fair posts judging those dificiencies. But a lot of other posts are simply shitting on the kid and angry a 20 year old kid isnt prime Kane. Which is daft as heck.
And then there are the usual suspects who clearly want him to fail.
I fully agree those posters are ridiculous, wanting a player who plays for the club you support to fail just so you can win an internet argument is asinine.
Attrubuting this to a very RAW and promising- 20 year old - Yes 20 year old. Is well - insanity.
Yeah and its not only here is on several players threads, and I really dont get it. There are players where I just dont think they are good enough, but nothing is better when one of our own steps up and proves me wrong.
It's not new. Carrick, Fletcher, Evans, Nani, Rashford, etc all had/have posters (fans) who seemed to have a personal dislike for them, it's strange and I just can't comprehend taking self-congratulatory satisfaction from watching one of your players struggle.
That is a legit question tbh. It's been the same with endless players before Hojlund. Like Pogba, VDB, Antony etc. Tbh I don't get why people keep thinking some our players would need two, three new signings, or a compete overhaul of the squad, or a new manager, or now a new DoF to be able to play well. And can't accept the simple truth that those players are just not good enough. Then the talks like old Ronaldo would score shitload with City. Or now Hojlund. Both wouldn't even make the bench there tbh. Just ask some City or neutral fans.
If you have a look at my posting history you'd see I've been supporting Hojlund since we signed him. Still think he'll come good but atm he's simply too young and raw and not good enough for this level. Having excuses after excuses while refusing to look at the damn truth won't help anyone especially Hojlund. What we really need now is a new good goal scorer so the lad could be allowed the much needed time/patience and environment to develop. And we might have some more goals to win a game.
It's also the type of chance Nunez would probably miss...
Is it true he's had the lowest number of passes out of all the league's strikers?
Well that's a load of shit anyway. How many 20 year old 9s are there floating around, banging in goals in the top leagues?
He's been poor but it's not really his fault. To buy a 20 year old striker, who wasn't even starting regularly for Atalanta, and expect him to be a top class CF is unfair. The club needed to sign two strikers in the summer and boot Martial out of the club. Wasting £70m on a prospect then start him every game is what Manchester United do these days. Anyone involved with transfers needs to be sacked because they are clueless how to run this football club.
Criticise him until the cows come home, but what do people actually want in the short term? Play a lacklustre Rashford up top, who has less than half of Højlunds goals this season? Start Martial who is (hopefully) on his way out anyway? Or dip into the market in January, where we will have to pay overprice for whatever we get? The options aren't great.
Whichever striker we have up there, they are not going to get the support they need. Unless we have a genuinely world class forward that can create for themselves or is excellent at going deep to link the play, these problems will persist.
It could well be another piece of really bad transfer business, but I can't see a situation, where Højlund doesn't continue to get a bunch of starts. I think he showed glimpses of what he can do earlier in the season, both in terms of hold-up play and movement in the box. Now it seems like he is low on confidence, and in the last two matches he's been up against two pairs of really good and physcially imposing centerbacks. He has mostly been on his own fighting the likes of VVD, Konate and Upamecano - not an easy task.
I hope the team and the fans get behind him. With young strikers, a little confidence boost from a couple of goals can make a big difference - hope he gets that soon.
Whichever striker we have up there, they are not going to get the support they need. Unless we have a genuinely world class forward that can create for themselves or is excellent at going deep to link the play, these problems will persist.
It could well be another piece of really bad transfer business, but I can't see a situation, where Højlund doesn't continue to get a bunch of starts. I think he showed glimpses of what he can do earlier in the season, both in terms of hold-up play and movement in the box. Now it seems like he is low on confidence, and in the last two matches he's been up against two pairs of really good and physcially imposing centerbacks. He has mostly been on his own fighting the likes of VVD, Konate and Upamecano - not an easy task.
I hope the team and the fans get behind him. With young strikers, a little confidence boost from a couple of goals can make a big difference - hope he gets that soon.
The guy literally said scoring 1 goal would be a nice start and you conclude this
There are tons of examples in this thread where physical strikers have scored before their age of 22.
What are you trying to say here? Højlund has scored 5 goals in 6 CL games. Why does that not matter?
Tons of examples as in Lukaku and Haaland? Good one.
Lukaku, Haaland, Nistelroy, Drogba are 4 which I just read. Do you want a 1000?
The goals will come but as I said earlier, the concerns seem fair to me. Hope he gets his goal.