Amorim is right about him. He gets so few chances because our team is awful at passing/crossing into the box. Doesn't help when he plays the new LWB at RWB though.
9
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 48
- Goals
- 10
- Assists
- 2
- Yellow cards
- 2
-
Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
This place is a swamp of moronic toxicity sometimes. Stupidity of the crowd, I guess.
No no, you got that all wrong pal. Any other striker in the league has the secret 6th sense of knowing where every pass will end up and running there. Also, you don’t get to post anything other than “he’s utter rubbish” in here.
Exactly this. When you saw it in slow motion from the side camera you could see straight across the passing angle and either the goalie or defender would have intercepted the ball first. Maybe the defender could have scored an own goal if hit hard enough, but that’s all what was on.
Btw, I loved his obvious joy when Zirkzee and HM scored. He really cares about the team even when going through a very difficult time - in stark contrast to some of his teammates.
This is what don’t make sense. You want your wide men to be able to go down the line and cross on the fly. Playing inverted means they have to stop and usually play the ball backwards. This kills the momentum and results with fewer balls in the box. Amorim made a big mistake for me keeping an ineffectual Dalot there. I hope it’s not Portuguese favouritism
Eeh that is not where he should be. He should pull the defenders towards goal so our second line of attack can be free for the cutback.
That being said, his first touch is the worst I have seen at the club, and for that reason we should get rid in the summer.
He can’t play with his back to goal at all.
He’d do better as the left forward with Zirkzee holding it up in the middle.
Not an option I’d want us to do though. Love his enthusiasm but he’s miles off it.
He’d do better as the left forward with Zirkzee holding it up in the middle.
Not an option I’d want us to do though. Love his enthusiasm but he’s miles off it.
Yeah same here. He's a young dude too, may w be cares TOO much and is overthinking things a bit at times, who knows though.
Strangest footballer in our team because every time I watch him I get the impression there's a really really good player there but he lost the ball a number of times last night, didn't really ever look like scoring and didn't seem to lose his marker enough to be a danger.
He never really looks like scoring against premier league teams at the minute, but I always have this feeling that once he calms down, learns where to position himself better, and his team mates finally start figuring out how to work with him, he's going to score a lot of goals. His flick toward goal was REALLY clever and would have been a brilliant finish, but luckily it fell to Zirkzee anyway.
Jury still out and for his and United's sake I hope it all just clicks one of these days. Definitely needs to work on his hold up play off the evidence of this season and last night.
Completely. Garnacho didn't play any crosses to the near post or between the keeper and the defender. All of them apart from the one that reached Hojlund for Zirkzees goal were to the penalty spot or further back.
When the defence is set, these should be picked by no10s crashing the box, like Mainoo did a couple games ago.
We are terrible at getting players in the box generally. That's one of the reasons i was gutted to see Dorgu on the right. With an energetic WB on both sides we would have an extra player in the box.
Actually got on the end of a cross for the first time in what feels like forever.
He's quite an easy striker to defend against
Criminal touch. Nothing you can learn either. Just a lack of technical ability needed to make it at this level
Needs to be loaned or sold in the summer. Not good enough doesn't do the basics and as others have stated his movement is nonchalant.
If you actually watch the games, you’ll understand that it’s solely Højlund’s lack of abilities, and not everyone else’s fault, that he hasn’t lived up to expectations.
Højlund has performed exactly as one might expect—maybe even above his level. The whole issue is that he was bought as a finished player, expected to deliver 20–30 goals per season. He simply doesn’t have that level yet. Unfortunately, the price and timing have defined his time at United. If he had been bought as a prospect for the future at a price of 10 million, the criticism would have been entirely different. But he was brought in as a star striker for 70million, and with that comes the expectation to perform from day one.
Højlund struggles in 9 out of 10 games. It’s really not looking good at the moment. United, first of all, needs to play him in a different way. He needs to be played more into space and not always with his back to goal and a defender on his neck. It even seems like he seeks out that position himself. And then, there’s a lot of work needed on his timing and football intelligence. Too often, he’s simply not an option for the pass and doesn’t make the right runs, and Amorim must take some blame for that as well.
United only attempts to play one style of football, almost like indoor football, where every ball has to go back through Maguire. There’s such a lack of direct and forward-thinking play. Sometimes, it feels like they aren’t even trying to create chances but are content just passing the ball around without breaking through the opposition. It’s extremely frustrating to watch.
And it’s also not easy being a striker of Højlund’s type with this style of play.
So, the perfect combination of a poorly coached team and Højlund’s own limitations makes it very difficult for him to succeed.
Højlund has performed exactly as one might expect—maybe even above his level. The whole issue is that he was bought as a finished player, expected to deliver 20–30 goals per season. He simply doesn’t have that level yet. Unfortunately, the price and timing have defined his time at United. If he had been bought as a prospect for the future at a price of 10 million, the criticism would have been entirely different. But he was brought in as a star striker for 70million, and with that comes the expectation to perform from day one.
Højlund struggles in 9 out of 10 games. It’s really not looking good at the moment. United, first of all, needs to play him in a different way. He needs to be played more into space and not always with his back to goal and a defender on his neck. It even seems like he seeks out that position himself. And then, there’s a lot of work needed on his timing and football intelligence. Too often, he’s simply not an option for the pass and doesn’t make the right runs, and Amorim must take some blame for that as well.
United only attempts to play one style of football, almost like indoor football, where every ball has to go back through Maguire. There’s such a lack of direct and forward-thinking play. Sometimes, it feels like they aren’t even trying to create chances but are content just passing the ball around without breaking through the opposition. It’s extremely frustrating to watch.
And it’s also not easy being a striker of Højlund’s type with this style of play.
So, the perfect combination of a poorly coached team and Højlund’s own limitations makes it very difficult for him to succeed.
Amorim needs to ditch him acting as a hold up striker with his back to goal and maybe start coaching him on the last defender and playing balls over the top. He is one of the worst centre forwards for holding up I’ve seen in a red jersey .
It’s quite astonishing that he produces a performance that a mid-table championship striker would be disappointed with and yet it’s actually an improvement on his usual displays.
I don’t understand why he keeps returning to the team. There’s plenty of faults with Amorim’s team selection at the moment but this is the single biggest one. Pick Zirkzee for a run of matches - he’s not perfect but he’s far far better than anything Rasmus is producing.
I don’t understand why he keeps returning to the team. There’s plenty of faults with Amorim’s team selection at the moment but this is the single biggest one. Pick Zirkzee for a run of matches - he’s not perfect but he’s far far better than anything Rasmus is producing.
Just think watching last night it’s evident he’s a part of the problem of why we get boxed in playing out from the back, his hold up play is atrocious, teams just put one defender tight on him and know he’s not going to hold the ball up or make a lay off and win it back.
Why wasn't this spotted during the scouting trips?
He doesn't even jump for a ball that is pumped up to him, rather he stays firmly planted to the ground and allows the CB to just complete the header completely unchallenged.
So many movement experts in here.
There was enough space between them to slip a ball through that Amad would probably have been able to get a tap in at the back post. Hojlund wouldn't have been able to reach it though, despite him being the one who then reacted unhappily.
I honestly wonder if we need to roll the dice with him and just try him in a completely different position, his run from deeper last night showed he can terrorise defenders given space to run into, and he definitely has the pace.
If we were still 4 2 3 1 I’d be interested to see how he’d do as one of the wide attackers
Either way he is clearly awful at playing with his back to goal and he’s getting worse it seems.
It’d be no weirder than playing Mainoo up front
If we were still 4 2 3 1 I’d be interested to see how he’d do as one of the wide attackers
Either way he is clearly awful at playing with his back to goal and he’s getting worse it seems.
It’d be no weirder than playing Mainoo up front
There was a moment when he turned a player and ran towards goal. Think it surprised his own team mates.
That and with the flick for what was eventually the Zirkzee goal shows he has attributes that would serve him and the team very well.
The frustration is he doesn't do this often enough. Plays like a player who hasn't got those skills but ones of a amateur wrestler.
To be fair to him it was these moments where the ball was played to feet to him. I can't overcome the anger and frustration of him getting high balls lobbed to him consistently when he simply doesn't win headers and those duels. Surely the team and Amorim know this by now and the aim should be to play balls to his feet?
That and with the flick for what was eventually the Zirkzee goal shows he has attributes that would serve him and the team very well.
The frustration is he doesn't do this often enough. Plays like a player who hasn't got those skills but ones of a amateur wrestler.
To be fair to him it was these moments where the ball was played to feet to him. I can't overcome the anger and frustration of him getting high balls lobbed to him consistently when he simply doesn't win headers and those duels. Surely the team and Amorim know this by now and the aim should be to play balls to his feet?
Have you see his first touch?
Amorin can tell the players to play it to his feet but game after game they, just as we, see simple passes bouncing yards off him. If you meant play the ball behind so he can run on to them that is without doubt his strength, but long term that space behind is not going to be available if Utd want to be a team that controls possession and territory and his movement is currently not sharp enough to make that a consistent viable threat nevermind the service.
So you have a striker who is awful with back to goal, abysmal in the air and not really a threat. So a great defensive striker, a Kuyt?, Not really, if anything the stats show he is fairly terrible in that area as well. People say they see the talent but it is very rare glimpses.
That's not even his strong suit, though I see your point. With Atalanta he thrived with balls in space when he can run at it.
To be honest I kind of meant to write that. A sort of when attacking the ball and in space.
"To feet" was the wrong expression. I realized after @Bobski comment but didn't bother to go back and change
We wish he was as good as Andy Carroll
I myself should have phrased my post better. I see what you meant, Hojlund isn't good in the air, so it makes no sense to not pass the ball at his feet. And reading that I thought about the type of situations you are alluding to and the entirety of our approach is wrong, Hojlund isn't a target man, he is a bit like Lukaku in the sense that he thrives when he can stretch his legs and rarely plays with his back to the goals.
The problem is that he offers so few reliable options for the team as a passing recipient. If we can see this, if his teammates know it then it is obvious the opposition knows it as well, knowing how limited he is gives the defenders he is up against more confidence to play aggressively against him and focus on others.
I think if Utd finally manage to land a striker with a good all round game it is going to be a shock to some just how much of a difference it makes to the overall attacking play.
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Then how do you explain the difference in his numbers and Zirkzees? Last night he made 13 passes in 90mins the lowest of any player on the pitch. The Leicester #9 made 25 and he's not playing with Bruno or Amad. Zirkzee made 8 passes and he was only on for 20mins.
Vs Palace they both came on for 20mins, Zikrzee 14 passes Ras 4
Vs Fulham Ras was on for 60mins before getting subbed for Zirk. Zirk in 30mins 6 Ras in 60mins 9.
Vs Southampton again Ras on for 55mins and manages 9 passes. Zirkzee with 13 in almost half the time.
I could go on and on but there's plenty of sites which track performances per 90 and it's not even close.
You can see the same trend for progressive passes/chances created/ loss of possession etc. Basically any metric that measures someones ability on the ball.
Both of them are playing on the same side and the difference is night and day.
Iv seen Erling get on the end of theses cut backs tens of times.
One is dropping deep to collect the ball. If Zirkzee was up top running into channel's he'd probably be worse than Rasmus at doing so. Whichever one plays needs their team mates to play to their strengths.
Gyökeres is more like Rasmus than Zirkzee, so we'd probably starve him of service as well.
Not sure how you can ignore what type of player they are and what their strengths are?
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Our play up to him is not the best a lot of high balls which by definition are basically 50/50 could he do better with them sure, but we shouldn't be reliant on pumping balls into a front man to get a hold of the ball to build up play we should be playing through the lines
Progressive passes received: Zirkzee 45 Ras 21
Touches in opponents box: Zirkzee 32 Ras 7
Shot creating actions Zikrzee 77 Ras 36
I'm not ignoring anything I said in my post that any metric you'd like to measure shows Rasmus being way off it. There's three above which measure where a player is receiving the ball. So if Zirkzee is making so many more passes because he's dropping deep then why does he massively outperform Ras for progressive passes received/touches in opponents box and shot creating actions? All of which are stats that measure play in the final 3rd.
Why don't you or anyone else defending him give us all some examples of how his particular game is showing up in the metrics?
Criminal first touch yesterday. balls were just bouncing off of his feet like a game of pong
His confidence is gone for good, might have to restart some place else.
I think Ruben will still try to coach him. But he is as good as gone.
Cant judge him much now. He sinks under pressure. Cant cope with EPL. May turn good somewhere, you never know.
Guy who people want to replace him with, scored 4 goals in over 31 games for Coventry around the same age. So how the heck did he manage a goal a game in 2024/25?
The one thing I can't question with Rasmus is his commitment to the cause.