Rasmus Hojlund

Bertie Wooster · Feb 7, 2024

Gordon Godot said:
I think this is a good example of the overuse of statistics and small sample sizes. Still, he's definitely looking better, but agree with the poster not a £70m striker. Maybe in a couple of years but who knows.

I thought that was what the large fee was for - the high potential of what he could / should become as he develops, not that he was already arriving here as a complete, £70m striker.

I've not seen anyone claim that Hojlund arrived here as the finished article. He's obviously still evolving his game and is still developing and improving. But he has the high ceiling of a £70m+ striker, and in the poor striker market we found ourselves just when we were looking for a new first choice, then he seemed (and still seems) worth going for compared to the other options.

The fee is a little high for his current ability level, yes, so is an unfair tag to judge him on at this stage - but he definitely has the potential to soon develop into a £70m+ striker.

Valencia Shin Crosses · Feb 7, 2024

Gordon Godot said:
I think this is a good example of the overuse of statistics and small sample sizes. Still, he's definitely looking better, but agree with the poster not a £70m striker. Maybe in a couple of years but who knows.

If you lot actually researched the market values of strikers you'd realize that he actually IS a 70m striker considering age/profile/potential. 70m doesn't get you some world class goalscorer these days

Valencia Shin Crosses · Feb 7, 2024

Bertie Wooster said:
I thought that was what the large fee was for - the high potential of what he could / should become as he develops, not that he was already arriving here as a complete, £70m striker.

I've not seen anyone claim that Hojlund arrived here as the finished article. He's obviously still evolving his game and is still developing and improving. But he has the high ceiling of a £70m+ striker, and in the poor striker market we found ourselves just when we were looking for a new first choice, then he seemed (and still seems) worth going for compared to the other options.

The fee is a little high for his current ability level, yes, so is an unfair tag to judge him on at this stage - but he definitely has the potential to soon develop into a £70m+ striker.

The last 3 strikers to go for that ball park of fee in recent years are Vlahovic, Isak, and Kolo Muani.

Vlahovic scored 14 goals last year in all competitions and has 11 so far this year and he's 3 years older. Isak scored 11 last year in 29 games for a better performing Newcastle team and he's ALSO 2 years older than Rasmus. Kolo Muani thus far has 7 goals in 22 games for PSG since his big money move.

The fee really isn't that high if you put it into context. The striker market is absolutely barren in recent years, you have to be willing to buy these players at younger and younger ages before they have a huge blowup season in a foreign league because if you wait too long you'll end up paying 50% more while STILL not knowing if said player is the real deal.

Gordon Godot · Feb 7, 2024

Valencia Shin Crosses said:
If you lot actually researched the market values of strikers you'd realize that he actually IS a 70m striker considering age/profile/potential. 70m doesn't get you some world class goalscorer these days

Gosh, I bow down before your knowledge of top level transfers. There was a lot of amazement at the time that a player valued around £40-50m and as soon as United got serious the price ballooned. City signed Alvarez for under €20m, think he was 23 when signed, 8 goals and 7 assists this season so far.

You arguing we are good at transfers?

Gavinb33 · Feb 7, 2024

I see people banging on about the fee all the time Endrick and Vitor Roque cost ballpark around the same fee (€60 million from what I cam see) and neither have done anything at the level Rasmus has but I bet if we signed either of those people would likely not mention the fee and just talk about the potential

reelworld · Feb 7, 2024

Gordon Godot said:
Gosh, I bow down before your knowledge of top level transfers. There was a lot of amazement at the time that a player valued around £40-50m and as soon as United got serious the price ballooned. City signed Alvarez for under €20m, think he was 23 when signed, 8 goals and 7 assists this season so far.

You arguing we are good at transfers?

United bought Javier Hernandez for 7m, what's your point?

Gordon Godot · Feb 7, 2024

reelworld said:
United bought Javier Hernandez for 7m, what's your point?

Whats yours? My point is there are always value signings, Hojlund was never worth a £70m singing and its laughable to pretend he was. Rangnick flagged Alvarez before he signed for City. Atlanta paid £10m for Hojlund in 2022, we came in a year later and paid 7 times that after 9 goals. We massively overpaid, one reason we cant sign anyone this window. Also undoubtedly added to the pressure on a young and inexperienced striker. If your all happy with us wasting money fine. Hopefully a proper team under INEOS stop the club getting mugged every window.

roonster09 · Feb 7, 2024

Gordon Godot said:
I think this is a good example of the overuse of statistics and small sample sizes. Still, he's definitely looking better, but agree with the poster not a £70m striker. Maybe in a couple of years but who knows.

So you know why we paid so much money and still somehow saying he isn't 70 million player now?

Any young player signed, or lets say most young players signed cost bigger money because of potential.

Solius · Feb 7, 2024

Gordon Godot said:
Whats yours? My point is there are always value signings, Hojlund was never worth a £70m singing and its laughable to pretend he was. Rangnick flagged Alvarez before he signed for City. Atlanta paid £10m for Hojlund in 2022, we came in a year later and paid 7 times that after 9 goals. We massively overpaid, one reason we cant sign anyone this window. Also undoubtedly added to the pressure on a young and inexperienced striker. If your all happy with us wasting money fine. Hopefully a proper team under INEOS stop the club getting mugged every window.

If he fulfills his potential and becomes a world class striker will you say it was worth paying £70m for him then?

reelworld · Feb 7, 2024

Gordon Godot said:
Whats yours? My point is there are always value signings, Hojlund was never worth a £70m singing and its laughable to pretend he was. Rangnick flagged Alvarez before he signed for City. Atlanta paid £10m for Hojlund in 2022, we came in a year later and paid 7 times that after 9 goals. We massively overpaid, one reason we cant sign anyone this window. Also undoubtedly added to the pressure on a young and inexperienced striker. If your all happy with us wasting money fine. Hopefully a proper team under INEOS stop the club getting mugged every window.

Value signings are not the norm, and it's rare for a club like United and City. Everyone else on City strikers cost massive amount of money, Alvarez is the only one who cost so little.
Back to Hojlund, we paid 70m considering his potential, age, an upside, and that's absolutely worth it.

rimaldo · Feb 7, 2024

Solius said:
If he fulfills his potential and becomes a world class striker will you say it was worth paying £70m for him then?

i still couldn’t help but wonder what if they paid us £70m to take him and then he became world class. that would have been such a better deal.

next_number_seven · Feb 7, 2024

Gordon Godot said:
Whats yours? My point is there are always value signings, Hojlund was never worth a £70m singing and its laughable to pretend he was. Rangnick flagged Alvarez before he signed for City. Atlanta paid £10m for Hojlund in 2022, we came in a year later and paid 7 times that after 9 goals. We massively overpaid, one reason we cant sign anyone this window. Also undoubtedly added to the pressure on a young and inexperienced striker. If your all happy with us wasting money fine. Hopefully a proper team under INEOS stop the club getting mugged every window.

We obviously overpaid. He's market value was probably more like 40m to 50m max.

We're paying for potential anyway.

matherto · Feb 7, 2024

next_number_seven said:
We obviously overpaid. He's market value was probably more like 40m to 50m max.

We're paying for potential anyway.

It's just where the market is right now and the paucity of choice.

next_number_seven · Feb 7, 2024

matherto said:
It's just where the market is right now and the paucity of choice.

I think he'll come good anyway.

He has a bit of everything I feel.
He's better technically than Haaland and Osimhen but similar pace and physicality. He's also a bit more agile and better balanced.

matherto · Feb 7, 2024

next_number_seven said:
I think he'll come good anyway.

He has a bit of everything I feel.
He's better technically than Haaland and Osimhen but similar pace and physicality. He's also a bit more agile and better balanced.

Absolutely. He's got a lot of very good attributes and he's proven them already, the more experience and more polish he gets the better he'll be so we've just gotta be able to feed him chances.

Andersons Dietician · Feb 7, 2024

I still think there is a lot more to come from him which is mostly determined on us supplying him with the chances as he does make a lot of very good runs that are just never spotted or are and we just don’t pass. Kinda feel like if his wingers were more traditional wingers he’d have a lot more goals already.

He been bough for his transitional ability to go from pressing to attacking at speed so hopefully as a unit we continue to improve and he can show us more of how versatile of a finisher he actually is.

Tony247 · Feb 7, 2024

L1nk said:
It was the fanbases of other teams on Twitter who were posting clips of the guy because Rasmus was on a poor run, as every fanbase seems to do to any player who isn't playing well, they find or post a 'lookalike' that is often considered to be less than them as a means to say how shit they are. Basically it was initially done to mock both Hojlund and this Sean Mills guy, but to be fair to the guy he's taken it in his stride and he seems like a good person

Ah.Thanks.

Valencia Shin Crosses · Feb 7, 2024

Gordon Godot said:
Gosh, I bow down before your knowledge of top level transfers. There was a lot of amazement at the time that a player valued around £40-50m and as soon as United got serious the price ballooned. City signed Alvarez for under €20m, think he was 23 when signed, 8 goals and 7 assists this season so far.

You arguing we are good at transfers?

Alvarez hardly plays as a 9 though, and it's difficult to compare attackers numbers at City because anyone playing in the best team in the world will have 0 issue getting goals and assists.

But no I'm absolutely not saying we are good at transfers, we were generally terrible pre-takeover. Just saying that Hojlund wasn't really that far off what you'd expect to pay, and I don't love the complaint of "he's not a 70m striker" when that number isn't the absurd fee it might have been 10 years ago considering how much the market has ballooned in general, and he's already scored 10 this year before his 21st birthday.

Abraxas · Feb 7, 2024

I don't really get the focus over a fee when it's a 20, now 21 year old striker. It really isn't that important at this stage. Part of that fee represented potential and long-term value, which we have no way to comment on with any real authority except to look at some early signs after a very short period of time. That needs 2 full seasons to really come to fruition.

The value someone has isn't just made up of current ability. This should be extremely obvious by now in football. With young players it's pointless to say whether they're worth the exact fee they're bought for after a few months. That's only a worthwhile exercise with the late career signings.

To me it's 70 million and a question mark ascribed to it. He could fall away and be worth half of that, he could increase the value quite conceivably due to the lack of real number 9s out there with high potential. Nothing to worry about, that's the transfer market game, you rely on good scouts and coaching to turn the fees in a way that looks good rather than shite like most of ours in the last 10 years or so.

Valencia Shin Crosses · Feb 7, 2024

Abraxas said:
I don't really get the focus over a fee when it's a 20, now 21 year old striker. It really isn't that important at this stage. Part of that fee represented potential and long-term value, which we have no way to comment on with any real authority except to look at some early signs after a very short period of time. That needs 2 full seasons to really come to fruition.

The value someone has isn't just made up of current ability. This should be extremely obvious by now in football. With young players it's pointless to say whether they're worth the exact fee they're bought for after a few months. That's only a worthwhile exercise with the late career signings.

To me it's 70 million and a question mark ascribed to it. He could fall away and be worth half of that, he could increase the value quite conceivably due to the lack of real number 9s out there with high potential.

Yeah exactly my point. Paying for guaranteed goals basically doesn't exist anymore with how priced out the market has become. Napoli wanted a world record for Osimhen. Spurs wanted 100m+ from us for a 30 year old Kane, and only took less because he was off to another country. Haaland was an anomaly because of his release clause. So clubs are forced to buy these players that are the next tier down who show potential but aren't the finished product and it becomes much more of a scouting exercise which we all know is an imperfect science.

Feels like going forward it's going to be more and more important for clubs to be elite in their scouting/transfer activity with how quickly they can identify and snap up talents before they explode, because it's going to be tougher to buy fully established players in their prime aside from a few cases where the contract is run down or there is a complete fallout of player and club.

Isotope · Feb 7, 2024

tomaldinho1 said:
I don't think he's changed this at all? Look at his goal versus Dawson, leans into him, gets his arm across him and reaps the reward with a goal. This is what we haven't had in yonks, really since Ibra and he wasn't very mobile, a CF who is able to overpower big PL CBs in those 50/50 situations. His goal versus WHUM was just made by Case and both West Ham CBs drop off him which allows him to turn and drive at the goal.

He's still not a big target man who will win loads of header and hold it up, he's a poacher and he will stick on CBs to allow him to run off them and across them. I don't think he'll score many like the goal versus WHUM but I think he'll get a lot more like the one versus Wolves.

I was commenting about his involvement. It seems like he's mimicking Weghorst's role that more recently, he's not the furthest player up front, or to not sticking to opponent CB.

But probably you're right that he hasn't changed. Maybe it's just my eyes play trick on mind, trying to explain his recent resurgence.

Red Rash · Feb 7, 2024

matherto said:
Confidence is a ridiculously undervalued thing to most fans it feels like.

You could see what it meant when he got his first PL goal and you can see everything about his play has improved now he's firing.

Confidence coupled with barely getting any chances created. If you get 4-5 chances every game even if you miss them you know more chances would come. In some games we couldn't even create a chance for Hojlund. That must put a lot of pressure on a striker when the chance eventually arrives.

johannes_fd · Feb 7, 2024

I like him alot. His brother Sean is a great singer aswell.

Cassidy · Feb 7, 2024

Crimson King said:
What about the £64m we've actually paid for him, so far?

Hes also not a £64m striker, hopefully he will become one though

always_hoping · Feb 7, 2024

Not sure if it was already mentioned on here but yesterday Dwight Yorke apparently said Hojlund is on borrowed time and he doesn't know what his strengths are.

Last time I've seen Yorke he sat in the studio with Andy Gray and that clueless Richards Keys, that view sounds like he's been influenced by those bucks and just repeated something Keys would say.

criticalanalysis · Feb 8, 2024

tomaldinho1 said:
I don't think he's changed this at all? Look at his goal versus Dawson, leans into him, gets his arm across him and reaps the reward with a goal. This is what we haven't had in yonks, really since Ibra and he wasn't very mobile, a CF who is able to overpower big PL CBs in those 50/50 situations. His goal versus WHUM was just made by Case and both West Ham CBs drop off him which allows him to turn and drive at the goal.

He's still not a big target man who will win loads of header and hold it up, he's a poacher and he will stick on CBs to allow him to run off them and across them. I don't think he'll score many like the goal versus WHUM but I think he'll get a lot more like the one versus Wolves.

He's definitely not great aerially on long balls but his hold up play is not bad and improving all the time. Of course he's had many loose touches and poor technique resulting in ball losses. However, I would say a good portion of those are where he gets the ball in really bad areas of the pitch with a defender up his back with no time or space for a touch or turn and which was only passed to him due to our poor build up play. Check out this video, which was posted above:

Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date

This is not the type of compilation of a striker, who will just hover around centre backs and look to poach goals. That's far too premature to say and not really based on what we've seen of him so far. He's an all arounder and part of the reason why he hasn't scored many goals or ones like the WH game is because he doesn't get the service. In that video, for every ball he has laid off or set up others, the favour was returned maybe 1 out of 5 times. Hopefully the last two games has shown a change of mentality and the service to him now.

croadyman · Feb 8, 2024

Bertie Wooster said:
I thought that was what the large fee was for - the high potential of what he could / should become as he develops, not that he was already arriving here as a complete, £70m striker.

I've not seen anyone claim that Hojlund arrived here as the finished article. He's obviously still evolving his game and is still developing and improving. But he has the high ceiling of a £70m+ striker, and in the poor striker market we found ourselves just when we were looking for a new first choice, then he seemed (and still seems) worth going for compared to the other options.

The fee is a little high for his current ability level, yes, so is an unfair tag to judge him on at this stage - but he definitely has the potential to soon develop into a £70m+ striker.

Yeah you do feel that INEOS would have definitely been able to negotiate a lower price for him

Keanes Magic Hat · Feb 8, 2024

Love his passion and work rate. There is a very good player there, if Rashford cam be coached to improve his decision making in final third he will score loads.

Luke Shaws overlapping runs have been a game changer for him. He received no service before that with both Garnacho and Antony cutting in and providing no assists.

DomesticTadpole · Feb 8, 2024

reelworld said:
Value signings are not the norm, and it's rare for a club like United and City. Everyone else on City strikers cost massive amount of money, Alvarez is the only one who cost so little.
Back to Hojlund, we paid 70m considering his potential, age, an upside, and that's absolutely worth it.

Look what City paid for Jack Grealish and he can't even get in the team. Yes Alvarez was a bargain, but they get stung sometimes just like all teams.

redcarpet · Feb 8, 2024

Valencia Shin Crosses said:
If you lot actually researched the market values of strikers you'd realize that he actually IS a 70m striker considering age/profile/potential. 70m doesn't get you some world class goalscorer these days

It's the doubling down of their original opinion

Mike Smalling · Feb 8, 2024

DomesticTadpole said:
Look what City paid for Jack Grealish and he can't even get in the team. Yes Alvarez was a bargain, but they get stung sometimes just like all teams.

Yeah, or Kalvin Phillips, or Benjamin Mendy. They get them wrong as well, they just don't need all their transfers to be saviors from the beggining. They can spend £70m on a small cog in their machine.

mav_9me · Feb 8, 2024

#07 said:
Hojlund has real talent. If we played to his strengths more he'd score more. Its that simple. For some reason we play in a way that doesn't make most of his speed in behind or his strength in duels with defenders. I guess it'll come eventually...

...I hope.

That part I don't get at all. Why don't we pass down the channels for him to run on to? Why don't we do thru passes to him, a 5 yrd or 30 yrd thru pass? Small pass on to his left foot for him to swivel for a first time shot which he seems to like. I think a lot of it is tactical but not sure that's getting the best out of the attack. But if we continue to improve our scoring like the last few weeks, maybe it's a sign of things starting to work? Note, we still don't create much for him.

DomesticTadpole · Feb 8, 2024

Mike Smalling said:
Yeah, or Kalvin Phillips, or Benjamin Mendy. They get them wrong as well, they just don't need all their transfers to be saviors from the beggining. They can spend £70m on a small cog in their machine.

True, where unfortunately we cannot as we try to play by the rules. Think Hojlund is starting to show what he can do with confidence. Strikers it is all about confidence.

RuudTom83 · Feb 8, 2024

It goes to show how much transfer fees influence fans view on a player.

Yet the footballing ability of a player only makes up part of a transfer fee.

If transfer fees were not disclosed then I can’t see anyone having a problem with Hojlund.

DomesticTadpole · Feb 8, 2024

RuudTom83 said:
It goes to show how much transfer fees influence fans view on a player.

Yet the footballing ability of a player only makes up part of a transfer fee.

If transfer fees were not disclosed then I can’t see anyone having a problem with Hojlund.

Think people forget that some teams are also good at exploring to South American market and get bargains, look at Brighton as well. Yet clubs like Real Madrid can end up paying a fortune in the same market and not all their purchases work out.

Rojofiam · Feb 8, 2024

Cassidy said:
Hes also not a £64m striker, hopefully he will become one though

Based on what?

Doracle · Feb 8, 2024

RuudTom83 said:
It goes to show how much transfer fees influence fans view on a player.

Yet the footballing ability of a player only makes up part of a transfer fee.

If transfer fees were not disclosed then I can’t see anyone having a problem with Hojlund.

The issue with Hojlund hasn’t primarily been his fee. It’s that he clearly shouldn’t, yet, be the first choice CF at one of the world’s biggest clubs. If we had purchased a Kane or an Osimhen in the Summer, and Hojlund, then I think everyone would have been happy with his signing, even at the outrageous price we paid.

Anyway, it’s pleasing that he’s started to score goals regularly and his all-round game is improving. If he can score at a 1 in 2 ratio for the rest of the season, and end with about 10 league goals and 18 or so overall (and continue to show development in his overall game), that will be a successful season for him in my view.

Keanes Magic Hat · Feb 8, 2024

Great article on skysports.com by Nick Wright on the lack of service he is receiving.

Performing unbelievably imo for his age and lack of support.

Cassidy · Feb 8, 2024

Rojofiam said:
Based on what?

My opinion. You are free to have your own

Valencia Shin Crosses · Feb 8, 2024

mav_9me said:
That part I don't get at all. Why don't we pass down the channels for him to run on to? Why don't we do thru passes to him, a 5 yrd or 30 yrd thru pass? Small pass on to his left foot for him to swivel for a first time shot which he seems to like. I think a lot of it is tactical but not sure that's getting the best out of the attack. But if we continue to improve our scoring like the last few weeks, maybe it's a sign of things starting to work? Note, we still don't create much for him.

Regarding the first point, I think it’s because you already have Rashford and Garnacho occupying the running into those channels because both have that movement as well. So Hojlund is more of a focal point for them to run off of.

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