[TMDaines]

A lot of the talk when we signed him was that having a strong, fast, mobile number 9 would occupy defenders more than they were last season, which would make Rashford even more productive. Hojlund isn’t expected to be our main goalscorer. Rashford is.

Sure, I was of the same mindset when he joined.

Had Rashford as our top scorer again, Højlund getting around a dozen with limited minutes, with the rest of the team contributing more, but nobody is holding up their end of the bargain. Rashford trending for fewer goals, Bruno too, nothing on the right side from Antony/Sancho/Pellistri, Garnacho not gonna be prolific when he plays, Højlund gonna have higher expected minutes but a lower than anticipated goals per 90 rate, and nobody from midfield looking like making a meaningful contribution as Casemiro won’t be sustainable.

 

[Borys]

Obviously. But a lot of people in this thread are eager to criticize and jump on him asap instead of looking at the bigger picture and more importantly, the club itself.

Meh, I don't think so. Once you really read through messages, everyone understands it's on the club. I never saw anything more in Hojlund than a big and fast guy (based on my 10min research mind you), but if he fails here I will never criticize him. It was just bonkers to bring him in and make him main striker. Same as with Antony really, someone at the club should've pulled the plug when the fee was getting close to twice or even trippled his market value. Again, not his fault.
Spending money is not a problem if you can bin players easily and buy new ones, but next season I would imagine our transfer budget will be restricted because of previous spending.

If we are being honest, Rashford - Martial - Greenwood was better then Rashford - Hojlund - Antony.

It was on different level, and Martial was the glue as he was really good at hold up play. Rashford was Rashford and Greenwood was fantastic finisher. But they didn't work hard off the ball (what seems to be the key for ETH picking attacking players). Ole did well to adjust to MMM front 3 with hard working midfield actually. At least you could see the plan there.

 

[stw2022]

Had he started Tuesday he would have scored

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Sure, I was of the same mindset when he joined.

Had Rashford as our top scorer again, Højlund getting around a dozen with limited minutes, with the rest of the team contributing more, but nobody is holding up their end of the bargain. Rashford trending for fewer goals, Bruno too, nothing on the right side from Antony/Sancho/Pellistri, Garnacho not gonna be prolific when he plays, Højlund gonna have higher expected minutes but a lower than anticipated goals per 90 rate, and nobody from midfield looking like making a meaningful contribution as Casemiro won’t be sustainable.

Yeah, that’s a good summary. It’s just not working out as hoped. I assumed Mount would help out with the goals from midfield too. He’s always known where the goal is.

Maybe it’s all just too early in this new project for it to click? I fecking hope so anyway.

 

[Catalandevil]

It is very difficult to be the main sticker in a team that doesn’t create changes and that plays extremely static football. However, he has shown promising signs. His movement inside the box is first-class, he presses well, and despite he has to contribute a bit more, he helps with the buildup.

Yesterday, he, Pellistri and Dalot were the only ones trying to create space and asking for the ball.

Once his teammates start to feed him, we will score plenty of goals, all signs are there.

 

[Dec9003]

We need to be patient with him, but we can’t be given how much we paid for him. He looks a decent young forward but he doesn’t massively improve us yet. His finishing needs developing, as does his decision making. There were opportunities for him to play players in which he didn’t take, I think he’s eager to score himself which I do get. I think Martial should start and let Hojlund come off the bench to make an impact.

 

[kafta]

There's no point in criticizing him right now, as he is part of a dysfunctional attack that isn't creating much. We should try to get the players around him playing some sort of consistent patterns, and then we can say he should be scoring. His fist touch and passing need work, but his work rate and runs are good, thats obvious, but i guess we knew that already.

 

[Wezzaldo]

Ah yes because every Man United striker has averaged 2 goals a game with 100% conversion rate. Give me a fecking break. He's feeding off literal scraps and you're saying normal United strikers bag 2 of those. Pure delusion

He obviously never watched Andy Cole mate

 

[TMDaines]

Maybe it’s all just too early in this new project for it to click? I fecking hope so anyway.

I don’t know. At this stage, I’m not sure what this new project is, what we are trying to do on the ball. I don’t believe the players play with clarity either.

It is all well and good us expecting Rashford to carry the burden, but in seven league matches so far, we have twice asked him to play with his back to goal up front*, shifting him to accommodate Garnacho, and on a third occasion yesterday we left him completely isolated on the left flank with no support. Palace could go 2v1 or 3v1 on him all day.

Fine, the team doesn’t have to be built around Rashford. We should do whatever makes the team strongest, but what are we trying to do instead? Nobody is thriving. When we line up how we did yesterday, I’ve got no idea where goals are reliably to come from. Where are we looking to attack the opposition with overloads to create high quality chances. There’s so much sterile possession and no clear areas of strength.

If we do the knee jerk thing and jettison Rashford for Garnacho then that does nothing for the cohesion up top. Garnacho has created ONE chance for a teammate all season in all competitions. Pellistri has created ZERO! He was the most beloved backup quaterback who only needed a chance a few weeks ago, but also offers nothing. No centre forward has much of a chance between those two – one chance created all season. Even an out of form Antony and Rashford create far more for their teammates than those two do.

Things are gonna be really tough for Højlund going forward and he’ll start to face criticism should we not be winning whilst he isn’t scoring. He’ll have a lot more of a chance if we stop dicking around though, play Rashford and Antony either side of him, and give each of them some sort of full back to keep their opposition defenders honest.

*He’s fine up front, but only with a strike partner or number 10 to be the advanced pivot and do the link play, Weghorst, Martial etc. Think Owen to Heskey.

 

[Andycoleno9]

He obviously never watched Andy Cole mate

Speaking of him; it is true that Andy Cole was missing chances but he was also scoring goals out of nothing, scoring half chances, scoring from tight angles and making perfectly timed runs to be in right spot.

So, my point is that excuse for Man Utd striker (no matter who he is, how much he was payed or how old he is) can't be "those were not clear chances so you can't expect him to score from there". If that is the case then we could have just bought Ings for 10-15 million.
All 3 chances which Hojlund had were solid chances. Not clear chances of course but all 3 were goal scoring chances and for me, Man Utd striker must score at least one of those. At least.

 

[Lyng]

And? Spurs now have a better manager. If that better manager had Kane, they'd be even better now.

Or do you mean it is more important to sack ETH than to get a top striker?

It means one player isnt going to save the team.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I don’t know. At this stage, I’m not sure what this new project is, what we are trying to do on the ball. I don’t believe the players play with clarity either.

It is all well and good us expecting Rashford to carry the burden, but in seven league matches so far, we have twice asked him to play with his back to goal up front*, shifting him to accommodate Garnacho, and on a third occasion yesterday we left him completely isolated on the left flank with no support. Palace could go 2v1 or 3v1 on him all day.

Fine, the team doesn’t have to be built around Rashford. We should do whatever makes the team strongest, but what are we trying to do instead? Nobody is thriving. When we line up how we did yesterday, I’ve got no idea where goals are reliably to come from. Where are we looking to attack the opposition with overloads to create high quality chances. There’s so much sterile possession and no clear areas of strength.

If we do the knee jerk thing and jettison Rashford for Garnacho then that does nothing for the cohesion up top. Garnacho has created ONE chance for a teammate all season in all competitions. Pellistri has created ZERO! He was the most beloved backup quaterback who only needed a chance a few weeks ago, but also offers nothing. No centre forward has much of a chance between those two – one chance created all season. Even an out of form Antony and Rashford create far more for their teammates than those two do.

Things are gonna be really tough for Højlund going forward and he’ll start to face criticism should we not be winning whilst he isn’t scoring. He’ll have a lot more of a chance if we stop dicking around though, play Rashford and Antony either side of him, and give each of them some sort of full back to keep their opposition defenders honest.

*He’s fine up front, but only with a strike partner or number 10 to be the advanced pivot and do the link play, Weghorst, Martial etc. Think Owen to Heskey.

I’m not suggesting we drop Rashford for Garnacho. We’ve gone all in on Rashford as our main man. We can’t give up on him yet. We have to stick with him.

He needs to up his fecking game though. Earlier in the season you were saying we can’t expect more from him through the centre because that’s not his game (despite scoring most of his goals in that role last season) Now he’s getting to play in his ideal position, with a hardworking, quick and mobile number 9 to distract the centre backs.

Blaming our left back for him still not producing is just reaching. The excuses have run out. This guy is our main man. With a new contract to reflect that. If Rashford starts playing at his very best then a lot of our problems go away. And Hojlund will be in a much better place in terms of integrating into his new team. Meanwhile, it feels very harsh to be putting the blame for our misfiring attack on players for whom we (justifiably) have lower expectations.

 

[Cassidy]

He was fine yesterday

 

[sullydnl]

A lot of the talk when we signed him was that having a strong, fast, mobile, hardworking number 9 would occupy defenders more than they were last season, which would make Rashford even more productive. Hojlund isn’t expected to be our main goalscorer. Rashford is.

So far Hojlund is ticking all of those boxes. It’s time for Rashford to start scoring. One goal in seven is a terrible return for a player of his status. The SNAFU on the right wing obviously doesn’t help either. Hopefully Antony’s return will improve us.

Yep. And it's 4 goals in 18 league games if you look back to last season too. Nowhere near enough.

 

[Kingdingaling]

Pretty dreadful so far imo - looks like a cross between Weghorst and Darwin.

For all the talk of his hold up play that looks awful too - not even as good as Martial!

 

[Melville Red]

He was fine yesterday

Yeh brilliant, reminds me of Weghurst, remind me how many goals has he scored so far?

 

[Cassidy]

Yeh brilliant, reminds me of Weghurst, remind me how many goals has he scored so far?

How many chances do we create as a team?
He was fine, not great not bad.
Last season Weghorst was missing sitter by the way

 

[James35]

Unfortunately we spunked a lot of money on both him and Onana and we don’t look any better. Not eithers fault really but it is what it is right now with the way the manager has us playing. If he gets more than 8 goals this season I’d be shocked

 

[Cassidy]

Unfortunately we spunked a lot of money on both him and Onana and we don’t look any better. Not eithers fault really but it is what it is right now with the way the manager has us playing. If he gets more than 8 goals this season I’d be shocked

Hes played about 5 games and has had the ball in the back of the net in 2 of them whilst having an effort cleared off the line yesterday. He isn’t doing badly.

Our issue at the moment is we don’t create enough.

 

[Melville Red]

How many chances do we create as a team?
He was fine, not great not bad.
Last season Weghorst was missing sitter by the way

Yes it was rather rash of me, I like his movement and he was a bit unlucky not to score, it’s Rashford I’ve really got a problem with.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Yep. And it's 4 goals in 18 league games if you look back to last season too. Nowhere near enough.

Yeah, so poor. Lots of top players go through lean spells but for the main man at top clubs to be so streaky is very very unusual.

It’s interesting actually. I grew up watching football where an average of a goal every second game meant a forward was doing a very good job.These days the expectations for elite players seems to be more than that. Whatever, to fall so far below that average at an age where he should be peaking asks big questions about whether Rashford will ever be considered one of the elite. And our success is dependent on him being one.

 

[James35]

Hes played about 5 games and has had the ball in the back of the net in 2 of them whilst having an effort cleared off the line yesterday. He isn’t doing badly.

Our issue at the moment is we don’t create enough.

He has scored one though unfortunately and yes you are right the opportunities are not created. We score a pathetic amount of goals for years now so I will stick with my over 8 goals will be an achievement. He is currently not a player who looks like he can create goals himself or take on defenders and score. He’d probably get 20 playing at City mind despite how raw he looks.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

Exorbitant fees for both youngsters and players entering their 30s always contain high risk. We can see the question marks around Casemiro's recent form. No one can doubt that he's a world-class player. The problem with paying upfront to secure the services of a young talent is that top potential doesn't always translate into top quality. A player can become better. He can also remain stagnant or get worse. Whether United, as a club in perennial transition, should be going after these transfers or not, it's another discussion.

It comes as no surprise that he looks raw. He's still adjusting to his teammates, and his teammates are adjusting to him. He has shown that he can find a finish in the box, that's a start. Hopefully, the rest will come with time. But, from the outside looking in, United broke the bank to sign a youngster to lead the line and replace the youngster they had broken the bank to sign as the main man back in 2015. What could possibly go wrong? You can "hyper normalize" it however you like, but this is how people who aren't emotionally involved with United see it.

Anyway, i hope the lad does well. At this point, my biggest fear isn't what he can or can't offer this team in the here and the now. I fear that the dire need for immediate results will push us to quickly coach him into becoming a particular type of forward. I don't know if this will be a good thing, since it's a long time since improved someone significantly.

 

[TMDaines]

He needs to up his fecking game though. Earlier in the season you were saying we can’t expect more from him through the centre because that’s not his game (despite scoring most of his goals in that role last season) Now he’s getting to play in his ideal position, with a hardworking, quick and mobile number 9 to distract the centre backs.

Blaming our left back for him still not producing is just reaching. The excuses have run out. This guy is our main man. With a new contract to reflect that. If Rashford starts playing at his very best then a lot of our problems go away. And Hojlund will be in a much better place in terms of integrating into his new team. Meanwhile, it feels very harsh to be putting the blame for our misfiring attack on players for whom we (justifiably) have lower expectations.

I’m pretty sure that first paragraph isn’t accurate. I’ve been of the view for a while that I don’t think it matters a whole lot whether Rashford is central or inside left, but it matters how the team is set up around him and what his role is centrally. Just don’t expect him to be the fulcrum with his back to goal. He’s bad at that. I even argued we missed Weghorst for precisely this reason, as we didn’t have anyone to be a partner up top with no Martial and Hojlund.

I don’t think the loss of a left back is reaching either. I have lower expectations of Garnacho too when he’s inside left, if he has no support on the flank. Good partnerships matter a lot and when one player is banging them in, it is usually because their teammates are doing exactly what they need to do too to support them.

ETH bought Reguilon in as an emergency third choice left back, precisely because it is so important for our team to have full backs supporting our wide attackers who want to cut inside. Each of Antony, Garnacho, Sancho and Rashford will find it far more difficult when their full back is roaming into centre midfield, rather than giving the opposition something to think about down the same flank. I’ll be surprised if we persist with the Amrabat roaming role after the last two matches.

Obviously, all this has a knock on effect for Hojlund too. It’s going to be difficult to get good chances for him whilst our flanks are in complete disarray, but we saw in the first few matches a lot of good balls being provided to him from wide areas, the vast majority from Rashford. Hopefully Antony’s return and someone supporting down the left can mean some higher quality chances created again. The last two games against Palace, the best chance has been a Jonny Evans header, which is somewhat indicative of our struggles from open play to really create a golden chance.

 

[frostbite]

It means one player isnt going to save the team.

This is a completely meaningless statement. "Save the team". It is not about saving anything, it is about getting better than last year.

Last year we had a good run without a striker. Wout was completely useless. To do better, we needed a world class striker, like Kane. Hojlund isn't it. It is very simple.

 

[Piskin]

Paid way too much money for him which I think will weigh on him. Ten Hag is going to use him like he did with Weghorst it seems.

 

[Doracle]

A lot of the talk when we signed him was that having a strong, fast, mobile, hardworking number 9 would occupy defenders more than they were last season, which would make Rashford even more productive. Hojlund isn’t expected to be our main goalscorer. Rashford is.

So far Hojlund is ticking all of those boxes. It’s time for Rashford to start scoring. One goal in seven is a terrible return for a player of his status. The SNAFU on the right wing obviously doesn’t help either. Hopefully Antony’s return will improve us.

People saying that were wrong though. What we needed was a CF with good hold up skills, who could interlink with our midfield and allow us to build up play. Frankly, it was what I expected Weghorst to be but he was relatively ineffective with his back to goal. Kane was the dream signing , as he’d provide that and goals but, given we couldn’t afford him, the priority had to be to get a CF good with their back to goal.

Instead, we got a very raw striker who wants to run in behind and get on the end of crosses - something we are not set up to supply. At the same time, we have a new midfield which isn’t yet working properly and are trying to make do without our three left backs as well as having no right wing to speak of.

I’m more than happy to cut Højlund some slack. He’s performing creditably for a player who, essentially, at the moment is a mid-table Serie A striker. However, I’d have hoped that people might realise that having a novice striker, no LB and a constantly changing midfield (whilst seemingly being asked to track back far more than I’d expect for the player we are relying on to score most of our goals) might also be part of the reason why Rashford isn’t looking at his best either.

 

[Lyng]

This is a completely meaningless statement. "Save the team". It is not about saving anything, it is about getting better than last year.

Last year we had a good run without a striker. Wout was completely useless. To do better, we needed a world class striker, like Kane. Hojlund isn't it. It is very simple.

Again you seem to think adding only Kane would make us much better. In orders for us to have gotten Kane we would have to only get him. No other new players. To think that fixes this mess is naive.

 

[zaafi]

This is a completely meaningless statement. "Save the team". It is not about saving anything, it is about getting better than last year.

Last year we had a good run without a striker. Wout was completely useless. To do better, we needed a world class striker, like Kane. Hojlund isn't it. It is very simple.

Let's say we did that. We add Kane to the team. We still need to improve in so many other aspects. So what is the point of adding a 30 year old striker for £120m with huge wages when we're not going to compete for anything because of the lack of improving in other areas? By the time we've improved those, Kane will need replacing and we need to start all over, only the problem is that we don't have money for a striker. It's incredibly short-sighted.

I would have gotten him if it was the only area we needed, and if it would mean that we actually had a chance at winning anything. Reality is that adding Kane wouldn't do much for us, because he won't get any proper service to add the goals.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Hes played about 5 games and has had the ball in the back of the net in 2 of them whilst having an effort cleared off the line yesterday. He isn’t doing badly.

Our issue at the moment is we don’t create enough.

He’s doing fine and needs time to settle - he’s also just a kid. It would help if everyone played for the team rather than with blinders on.

 

[Dansk]

He's obviously a goal threat with a natural striker's instinct, but he's 20 years old and has arrived in a new league and a club in total disarray where nothing works anywhere on the pitch. Don't know how anyone could expect him to hit the ground running. Considering the current state of the team, he has done well and been unlucky with disallowed goals, worldies from keepers, goal-line clearances, being offside by an eyebrow, denial of penalties, etc. If not for these things, which have nothing whatsoever to do with his own performances, he could as easily have had 4-5 goals by now.

Once his teammates find some form again and the sheer bad luck lets up, he'll be just fine. How many times now would he have scored if not for no-name keepers suddenly turning world class for a moment, defenders desperately clearing his shot off the line, Rashford dribbling the ball one planck length over the backline before the pass, and so on? Without these freak cases of raw misfortune, he just might have been our top scorer at this point.

I'm half-expecting a seagull to swoop down in front of goal to stop his shot from going in next time we play, and then some people around here will complain that he's a waste of money because he didn't score. That'd fit right in with what's been going on so far.

 

[golden_blunder]

Kane is gone. We have what we have. Back him

 

[Lee565]

Our recruitment has been so predictable and lazy that it would not surprise me if hojlund was signed based on purely on some lazy shallow comparisons to haaland

 

[El-Manos]

I don’t think he’s been that bad all things considered. We aren’t exactly creating a load of chances for him. His hold up play is excellent. heavy first touch but this can be coached surely ?

 

[NinjaZombie]

It's kind of harsh to be judging him when guy gets very little from his team mates.

 

[Rhyme Animal]

It's kind of harsh to be judging him when guy gets very little from his team mates.

He gets little service because his runs are very often poor / not worth passing to.

He doesn’t make / find space for himself.

This is concerning because a bit like first touch, instinct to find space tends to be fairly intuitive and doesn’t tend to improve hugely with coaching - Hojlund is poor in that regard and has poor first touch...

I’m sure Hojlund can improve somewhat, and you’d have to think he’ll go on a bit of a purple patch at some point during the season as he’s playing up top in a team containing Bruno F - but nothing, literally nothing about him suggests he should be leading the line for a PL side that wants to be competing for the highest honours.

 

[Lyng]

He gets little service because his runs are very often poor / not worth passing to.

He doesn’t make / find space for himself.

This is concerning because a bit like first touch, instinct to find space tends to be fairly intuitive and doesn’t tend to improve hugely with coaching - Hojlund is poor in that regard and has poor first touch...

I’m sure Hojlund can improve somewhat, and you’d have to think he’ll go on a bit of a purple patch at some point during the season as he’s playing up top in a team containing Bruno F - but nothing, literally nothing about him suggests he should be leading the line for a PL side that wants to be competing for the highest honours.

He does very good runs. In fact his positioning and runs are his biggest strengths.
Its how he gets his goals on the national team. Eriksen when working as a 10 is very good at finding him.
Bruno isn't. Which the graph shows. And neither are our main wingers.

 

[OrcaFat]

He does very good runs. In fact his positioning and runs are his biggest strengths.
Its how he gets his goals on the national team. Eriksen when working as a 10 is very good at finding him.
Bruno isn't. Which the graph shows. And neither are our main wingers.

That is stuff that can be drilled. Wingers and Bruno should find him as second nature. He makes the right runs and, please Christ, they will discover the joy and ease of passing to him.

 

[Lyng]

That is stuff that can be drilled. Wingers and Bruno should find him as second nature. He makes the right runs and, please Christ, they will discover the joy and ease of passing to him.

Oh absolutely it can and should be focused on in training.

 

[OrcaFat]

Oh absolutely it can and should be focused on in training.

Here’s hoping!