Yeah I don’t get that. And they want to spend 130m to find out
11
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 39
- Goals
- 11
- Assists
- 2
- Yellow cards
- 2
So you don't "see me in every thread"? Get back to defending Greenwood.
Hojlund will do a job, but I'll gladly be proved wrong if he ends up one of the best around.
I’d like to see Ruud brought in to work with him and help develop him.
Maybe the assumption is that they would pass to him because he's good. If Hojlund is so promising and deadly in front of goal, why aren't they passing to him? Doesn't make sense.
I’ll defend all our talented young players. Mainoo, Garnacho, Hojland, Amad and yes greenwood (as a player) because I think they have the ability to reach the very top level. I think it’s a bizarre stance to write off every young player. Frankly if you can’t see the ability of Hojland or Greenwood I’m interested to know who you do rate. That’s why I’d love you to answer my question.
Well they can cry in their cornflakes because we aren’t spending 130m on a striker
A lost soul at times out there, hopefully we don't break the kid. Rashford is his best ally, and that's not saying much currently.
I feel one of his weaknesses, and perhaps one why he doesn't get much service, is because his movement is pretty poor.
Ruud would do him wonders.
Glad to see him on the scoresheet again. I can feel his anger though. His wingers don’t supply him enough when he’s free in the box.
I wonder what his expected assists figure was for today. Seemed like he laid the ball off into a lot of promising shooting positions.
He doesn’t get much service because our wide players are greedy! Did you not see him open in their box when Garnacho shot. We see it game after game. Whenever he’s free in the opposition box the winger decides to shoot.
I think he makes good runs, it’s just our players lack the ability to play him through.
His lay offs seemed awful today to me. It's hopefully something that will improve with confidence but I think he also just needs to work on it technically in training. The League Two strikers looked better at it. Glad he got a goal finally at the end though, looked like it meant a lot to him.
Did you bother to read all my post or just four words.
You can't play through a player. He should be trying to get in front of the defenders more, not behind.
Our other players got chances. Which to me suggests he needs to find better positions. There was one point in the second half he basically just ran in the way of Garnacho.
I’ve seen enough to know he could be exceptional in 2 or 3 years but his stats 8 goals 1 assist in 26 appearances are the stats of a support striker learning his craft, he needs time and better support from the full backs and wingers to get those numbers up to 20-25 goals and 10 assists.
United need an elite number 9 like Osimhen, Toney or Evan Ferguson then he will develop, there’s too much pressure on the kid this year, short term If I can’t get any of the three above I’d get Santiago Gimenez or Mauro Icardi to share work load next season and upgrade both wingers. We need Antony, Rashford Pellistri and Sancho gone and then upgrade our wingers.
United need an elite number 9 like Osimhen, Toney or Evan Ferguson then he will develop, there’s too much pressure on the kid this year, short term If I can’t get any of the three above I’d get Santiago Gimenez or Mauro Icardi to share work load next season and upgrade both wingers. We need Antony, Rashford Pellistri and Sancho gone and then upgrade our wingers.
Against premier league teams the majority of things that we consider chances are just wild shots that teams competing for the league would consider wasted possession. Today those chances looked better because of the opposition.
He's usually the furthest up front leading the line wedged between two centre backs. There isn't any more room to run in behind other than getting into offside positions because we don't play through the midfield. The majority of our attacks come from breaks in play, are in transition or down the channels. Therefore you are asking Bruno, Garnacho, Rashford and Antony to play 20-40 yard through balls from the channels/deep midfield hoping it gets past the defenders, into Hojlund's feet and out of the reach of the opposition keeper.
That's not happening and the only way we can consistently build up attacks is to play into him for lay offs and one-twos. Garnacho is a one-man take-on machine. He will go past a player once and lose the ball equally. Antony is usually conservative with his possession and relies on interplay with Bruno/Dalot but will rarely beat his player and cross/cutback. Bruno plays 100mph and is all over the pitch.
Hojlund is doing his best to link play and be a focal point so others can get their possession and get on the ball because if he doesn't, then he'll be just another greedy cnut. He's far from perfect and I agree some of his runs are not in the best lines so he doesn't help himself but my god is he getting so little service or help from his teammates.
He might make 5 good runs and 5 bad runs but he will probably only receive it 2 times out of those 10. The biggest issue lays there.
We get the ball to him when he’s back facing the goal and he does the hold up play well. He also does well when he gets the ball further away from the box. But when he makes the types of runs that he likes making to break through on goal we never pick him out.
Looking at his goals compilation for Atalanta. Since joining United he’s only scored one of the type of goal that made up the majority of his goals at Atalanta and that came from a Galatasary defender.
Nah man after watching that match I believe our wingers are fecking selfish. They played as if they didn't know Hojlund is a CF and can score goals (or at least hold the ball) if given the chance to.
You put Rooney up front like that and he'd be livid with his team mates. It's awful.
You put Rooney up front like that and he'd be livid with his team mates. It's awful.
Feels like Ruud would more likely give the wingers the Ronaldo treatment. Probably have them in tears. He should have had a hatrick today with the positions he got in to just the ball never came when it should have. He doeshave moments where he makes the wrong choice but I can see why he is getting frustrated.
He’ll score goals if we just give him service. One of the senior players probably needs to have a word with the wingers as Rasmus doesn’t have the standing to do it.
All of it. I don’t think his movement is one of his main weaknesses. I’ve seen him make runs all the time but not getting the passes picked out.
He’s unfortunate that most of the time his run is used as a decoy. That’s also because most of the time, he takes a defender or two with him. It’s the others who need to have better vision to ensure his runs are not wasted. There were chances when he could/should have been picked out yesterday (Garnacho hitting the post move) but can’t really fault Hojlund’s movements.
"GARNACHO!!!!"
The truth is somewhere in between. Deserves better support but if he were that good the manager would force the play to him. The players would also naturally gravitate to threading him through. Bruno's really good at that.
I can't forget that amateurish header just outside their penalty box to no one in the 2nd half. He was under absolutely no pressure with his back to goal. Could have easily controlled it or laid it off for an open man. Then there was another run where Garnacho crossed it to the 6 yard line but instead of checking his run and sending his marker, Hojlund continued to run into a really tight angle which would have made conversion much harder if that's where Garnacho crossed it to.
He needs a lot of work to improve his hold up and aerial play, anticipation and movement in and around the box. At best, he'll also only be decent in his ball control and dribbling as technique is really hard to drastically improve past the teenage years.
I'll put it this way. If someone offered us the same fee we paid in the summer, I'd be happy for him to move on. Feel the same with a lot of our players to be fair.
I can't forget that amateurish header just outside their penalty box to no one in the 2nd half. He was under absolutely no pressure with his back to goal. Could have easily controlled it or laid it off for an open man. Then there was another run where Garnacho crossed it to the 6 yard line but instead of checking his run and sending his marker, Hojlund continued to run into a really tight angle which would have made conversion much harder if that's where Garnacho crossed it to.
He needs a lot of work to improve his hold up and aerial play, anticipation and movement in and around the box. At best, he'll also only be decent in his ball control and dribbling as technique is really hard to drastically improve past the teenage years.
I'll put it this way. If someone offered us the same fee we paid in the summer, I'd be happy for him to move on. Feel the same with a lot of our players to be fair.
Felt for him yesterday. He's making all the correct runs, and the passes aren't being played. Garnacho being the main culprit.
But he keeps making the runs, and he always plays the correct pass. The manager needs to get on them about this.
But he keeps making the runs, and he always plays the correct pass. The manager needs to get on them about this.
Strikers are meant to start behind the defender, he then should tailor his run to the cross. To cut across the defender or far post depending on the delivery and runs of teammates. He may be off by small details but your point about staying in front of a defender is bonkers
Exactly, something else to consider is we usually see his positioning at the conclusion of his run, after the wingers have inevitably not passed to him. More often than not he seems to be getting the yard, half yard separation he needs to score, and just not receiving the ball. He's not perfect, but he's a lot better than people think/expect.
For me, he doesn’t make clever runs. It’s drop deep and run as quick as he can into the box which is fair enough but it means the wide men have to pick the perfect pass to a pacy forward so no wonder most of our crosses are either just in front or behind him.
He mostly makes correct runs. He sometimes makes the wrong run. Sadly we cross so rarely and so badly that its a moot point.
We'll never know because the wide men don't make any passes. The old "slide rule" pass is anathema to them.
I didn't say it was....
I am talking about once he gets in the box he has run behind the defender i.e puts the defender between him and the player with the ball. It happened two or three times yesterday.
We do cross a lot but our cutbacks are shit because nobody is ever there.
"GARNAAA!! ..GARNAAAAAA!!"
You said you think one of his weaknesses was his movement that’s why he doesn’t get the service.
It's strange really. We have a 20 year old striker who's had a frankly ridiculous career trajectory until now. He took half a year or so to nail down a starting position in a decent Atalanta side and was then asked to lead the line in a dysfunctional United side, one that's also one of the most scrutinised in the world. He's done alright, and is performing fairly close to his xG the last I checked. His assists are probably below his xA as others can't finish. Yesterday was an example of this as he created two decent chances for Bruno, while scoring off a chance that wasn't even created for him.
Since the new year he's got three goals in four games I think and an assist.
Does that mean he's the long term solution and on the way to becoming one of the best strikers in the game? No one knows. But he is quite clearly not our main worry at the moment.
Although it would be pretty cool to have more than one striker in the squad in any case.
Since the new year he's got three goals in four games I think and an assist.
Does that mean he's the long term solution and on the way to becoming one of the best strikers in the game? No one knows. But he is quite clearly not our main worry at the moment.
Although it would be pretty cool to have more than one striker in the squad in any case.