Pogue, it took until Christmas for Hojlund to score a league goal, in a team where everyone else in the attack was compromising their own games in aid of allowing him to play his preferred role. No-one has been asking Hojlund to play as a wide forward, or as a 10, or anything else daft. He’s been as horribly exposed as anyone by this season’s non-approach, but thankfully finally did manage to score some league goals. It was about time too, given he’s largely been allowed to just focus on being a striker and has little to no involvement in build up play.
But to emphasise, that isn’t really anything to hold against Hojlund. I can’t really give a feck about how he has performed this season, when the whole team is set up to fail – and that has been apparent from the very first games of the season when Arsenal gave us the ball repeatedly, set back, yet Martinez and Onana had no options as to how to progress from the back. The horrible performances from every single outfielder this season are the chickens coming home to roost from not having honed a clear style of play.
I’m sorry, but the whole argument that Rashford is lazy is flat out bollocks. He did more sprints than United player again yesterday, despite the treatment he had first half. People completely discount all of the attacking runs he makes, many of them off-camera, which aren’t passed to.