Can’t take the ball to his feet. Only way this is going to work is for passes to be played in behind the defence and Rasmus to use his alleged pace to turn his man and get to the ball running onto the goal. His ability to hold the ball up in the worst I’ve seen.
9
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 50
- 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.
So on the back of a string of horrible games Hojlund plays a decent one and still get several pages of sh*t. His first touch was fine, he held the ball quite well and played it on with measured passes, he had a few turns and runs with pace with the ball and was involved in the goal. As far as I remember he lost the ball once.
The problem today was definitely not Hojlund, but our incoherent structure in and out of possession. That’s what should worry us, not single players atm. Teams with worse players than ours play way better football.
The problem today was definitely not Hojlund, but our incoherent structure in and out of possession. That’s what should worry us, not single players atm. Teams with worse players than ours play way better football.
He lost the ball twice in about 15 seconds alone in one phase of play
This is exactly it for me. Mctomminay would have been yards ahead of him and that's why he scored more. This guy hasn't studied enough tape or had the right coaches telling him he needs to act quicker, but that faster five yards isn't physical, it's a strikers intuition and IQ to apprehend where the ball is likely to be going and he's ten yards behind in both.
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I wish he'd show that kind of movement in the box
So does his bird. Borderline offside, check var on that one.
I don't think he is as bad player as he is currently showing. His confidence is shot dead. He was way better last year.
Well watch the game tonight and point out where Bruno/Amad created chances for him.
No CF apart from a genius could make anything out of that game. The team does the very opposite of feeding the No.9.
Starving the number 6?
Starving anyone in the opposition half.
He lost possession 4 times and made 13 passes in 90 mins. Not sure how he held the ball quite well by making the least amount of passes by any player on the pitch, Leicester #9 Daka made 25 passes for comparison. Even Zirkzee made 8 and he only played 20mins.
He did very little with the ball when he had it and his passing was poor yet again. Hojlund simply doesn't ask questions of his markers. For a bigger guy he has absolutely zero presence in the box where he should be coming alive
Should never of been bought to lead the line. Should have come in to learn and develop with proven strikers. Hes young and not ready yet. Kane was going out on loans at his age(roughly). This is a huge huge ask at a club struggling like this and it’s unfair that people are so harsh on him. Not his fault at all. He tries. He’s being set up to fail.
He’d benefit from us buying a top striker to be an under study for. Judge him in a few season time
He’d benefit from us buying a top striker to be an under study for. Judge him in a few season time
Scandinavian Ali Dia.
He has the touch of a brick wall. Do you think loans will help with that?
He's one of the worst CFs at holding up play. He's pretty awful at linking up play too. A dreadful player when the team desperately needs a focal point. He'd probably do better in a counter attacking team, but for a side with aspirations of being a more technical team he's just atrocious. He did look a little more involved with Zirkzee on the pitch.
That was actually his best game for a long long time. Simply because there were a few moments when he did ‘things’. I’ll repeat, nobody is stupid, we can accept a young player not being perfect, however, we need to see something that justifies the patience. Today, he ran with the ball a couple of times, and actually registered a shot at the goal, one that led to a goal no less.
Any attacker in the league is going to struggle to do those things in a team that cannot progress the ball.
I'm tired of people getting on his back. He is feeding on absolute scraps!!!! Its actually worse than I first thought. This team creates nothing. I don't know how we are not dead last in chance creation stats in the league. We spend 99% of the time playing rondos in the back 5. No striker on earth would excel in this team.
The match against FCSB was his best for a while, where he went away from wrestling with defenders so much and actually made runs down the side (even if they weren't often picked out). It made me hope that he might be starting to turn his form around, but now it looks like it was just due to the level of opposition. He's really been terrible for most of this season.
Sums up a lot of the posters in here. They always need a player to blame, even if we win. Guy is even getting the blame for his team mates not passing to him when he’s in good positions. It’s all a bit of an absurd witch hunt that’s endless and it just moves from one player to another.
The manager is hopefully addressing the passing issue, as Rasmus has very good conversion stats when shooting.
I'm actually fine with the striker making that run in that situation, as it forces the defenders to keep moving that direction as well. That opens up more space for the cutback for one of the #10's, CM's or WB's to be running into. Unfortunately those players often weren't in the right position.
The other alternative is for the striker to drop into that area and have the #10 or WB attacking the far post, to create space that way.
Nah, it wasn't a tap in for Hojlund. To get it past both the keeper and the defender Garnacho would have had to put too much pace on the pass for Hojlund to reach it. However, Amad was coming in on the back post and would have been the one to get the tap in.
Zirkzee, who everyone decries for not really being a striker and having terrible movement in the box, gets twice as many shots away (and from a closer distance) than Hojlund does. So imagine how many more somebody with actual good movement would get.
I do believe in the first few months of him joining us I often saw Hojlund make good movements and runs but not be found, so I had a lot of sympathy for him then. But since then it's at least, if not more, down to his own terrible movement as to why he doesn't get chances.
Garnacho ran up the left wing and pulled the ball back at least 4 times in the second half. He did not hold his run a single time. He kept running to where the defenders were running to. You could have Messi and De Bruyne in this team and they would not be able to find him because he has no interest in getting away from defenders.
McTominay was a better striker for us than this lad, and it was always evident when they were on the pitch together. He cannot make it as a Premier League striker until someone tells him playing as a striker is not about running forwards and expecting your teammates to thread the needle everytime. The ball will keep getting intercepted at this level, and people who can't see this will keep blaming a lack of service which is nonsense.
It doesn’t stop someone being able to control the ball or keep hold of it or play a pass. It’s by no means easy playing up front for us but he has been woeful this season.
This season, he’s worse than any other striker that starts regularly in the league and a big part of that is down to him.
He'll be here next season. I'm pretty certain of that. He's fortunate in that even though Zirkzee is the better overall player, this system requires a centre forward to spearhead the attack and that's not Zirkzee's game. We'll sign Gyokeres, Holjund will be backup, learning from him and getting game time in the lower stake games.
I'm glad someone saw this.
Garnacho looked up to see where Hojlund was for a cross & but hojlund didn't hold back his run for a tap in but instead kept going forward until he was in line with the last defender and the goalkeeper- a cross would have never worked out for Hojlund there as the byline cross in line of the opposition defence would just get deflected or saved - so Garnacho took the more selfish option and took a rubbish shot.
If this is a "decent one" its safe to say our expectations have dropped a bit the last years...
yeah, I thought he was terrible once again I've seen enough hopefully Amorim has as well.
Agree 100%. His football IQ is zero.
What more can be said about him? He's our Andy Carroll. Pure trash
A number 9 should be connecting with his players, passing them to recieve passes back. He doesn't do that.
Plus his pressing needs improvement.
Plus his pressing needs improvement.
He's just never in the right place.
Agreed. Also most of his goals last year were resulting from some chaos situation in the box.
Garnacho made 1000 cutbacks, he was never at the end of one of them.
Ah yes back to blaming him for everything. We never play in to channels to run into. Kobbie had several chances where Rasmus was actually positioning himself for a good run, but the pass is always sideways or backwards.
No wonder Zirkzee looks better since he also prefers to play the ball around 80000 times.
Højlund doesn't fit in this team. And he is having a awful season. Terrible mix.
No wonder Zirkzee looks better since he also prefers to play the ball around 80000 times.
Højlund doesn't fit in this team. And he is having a awful season. Terrible mix.
Tbf to him, whilst he is having a poor season, I don't think he was the one supposed to be on the end of a lot of those cutbacks. A lot of the time Rasmus had made the run into the box but the balls from Garnaco were cut back behind him. That's where you needed Zirkzee or Bruno following up. However, Zirkzee in right CAM was usually too far away on the right side and Bruno in a 2 was too deep to make up the distance. That gap behind the striker is always there, atm its more of a flaw in the formation than I'd say the players.
That area is open because he has pushed the cb deep with his run, the problem is that Zirkzee or Bruno should be there to slot those home but they aren't.
Also maybe Garnacho should try to look before just passing to no-one