Watching the game again. Does he actually have a shot in the game? Think Dorgu had more attempts than he did.
9
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 49
- 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.
Thought he played alright
Hard to look like scoring when your teammates are Garnacho who would rather die than pass to him
Hard to look like scoring when your teammates are Garnacho who would rather die than pass to him
There's no cohesion there between the two of them. Garnacho never really looks for him and doesn't try to play him in.
Last night also, especially in the first half, Lyon were very vulnerable to balls in behind. That's where we got our 2 goals from. Surely a striker is thinking, I'll come deep, swivel and make a run in behind. Did he do it even once?
Hard to look like scoring when your teammates are Garnacho who would rather die than pass to him
Literally all of our outfield players except the centre halves managed shots at goal against Lyon. Both wing-backs. Both ‘10s’. Both holding midfielders. Just not Hojlund. And of course, this is not a rarity. So unless people are trying to float this idea that everyone hates him, it’s obviously down to the fact that he’s a bit rubbish.
I've said the exact same thing many times, why is it everyone else gets shots but not Hojlund...we have had many late comebacks or scored late goals over Hojlund's 2 seasons and time and time again it is everyone but him who gets the late goals or late chances, yet somehow it is nothing to do with Hojlund, his teammates have all conspired to never give him chances.
People talk like he is a Thierry Henry with a long history of goals and his time with us is some anomaly on his record. One day he may have the required quality but right now he doesn't look like a PL level footballer and we are basically playing with 10 men when he starts.
Nah next time watch Rasmus and count how many times he's open. Believe me he's not useless and shite like people think. You could make a full on compilation of the amount of times he's ignored this season. Last season he basically had to score goals by himself. He was open about 3 times during that Lyon game or if Garna just held the ball for Rasmus to catch up but instead he of course shoots it. Rasmus would have about 15 goals and Garnacho would have have 15+ assists if he ever passes it. I forget he's still a kid but no kid should be that greedy.
Yeah. Literally our CB, DM, and sub CM all not just shot, but scored. If he can't even get a shot off, you can't chalk all that up to just service, even if that's an issue too.
I would take him out of the next two match day squads completely - not even on the bench. We do need him fit no matter what people say.
Also provides a chance to get to work with him on the training pitch to practise his positioning and finishing.
He needs to commit himself more to the correct runs when the ball is wide. He's fast enough but he never gets in front of the defender
Split his minutes between Obi and Biancheri.
Also provides a chance to get to work with him on the training pitch to practise his positioning and finishing.
He needs to commit himself more to the correct runs when the ball is wide. He's fast enough but he never gets in front of the defender
Split his minutes between Obi and Biancheri.
You're right he didn't.
He's playing the CF role like a defender might if chucked up top. Just doing the basics of backing into the defender, laying it off. Keeping it very simple.
It's nowhere near enough and only denting his confidence further.
Instead of backing into his defender how about turning him and then charging forwards? He's got the speed and strength to do it.
Or like you say, when we break how come it's always Garnacho steaming forward with the ball. Why is it never Rasmus? He's probably as quick and stronger.
He's playing with handcuffs on at the moment. Needs to free his game up, express himself more. Go for it basically.
Lately he looks completely shot of confidence and even scared. He seems very reluctant to get into striker type positions, and appears to be using the Rashford technique of 'looking like' making an effort to press etc., while actually purposely not moving fast enough or aggressively enough to actually affect anything.
The worst striker I've ever seen play for us.
Nothing baffling there. He ducks when the ball comes in. Seen it plenty of times. That's what's baffling.
What horrible, lazy analysis: oh, it's a back five, so it must be defensive and deep.
Before his unfortunate injury, Martinez had begun to understand the Amorim system. A spare CB pushes into midfield, progresses the play and maybe even gets goals. We've seen Yoro do that recently as well. In fact, he gave an interview a week or so ago saying that Amorim wants the back three to be playmakers, dictate the game and instigate attacks. Seen even Mazroui do it, and Maguire with his big switches.
Dalot constantly finds himself in dangerous areas, as does Dorgu. They need to run with the ball more, and Dalot especially needs to stay high as often as possible.
These excuses for a mediocre player simply must stop.
@Schmeichels pinky
This is what I meant by Hojlund still needs to practice his shooting technique. All of these 40 shots show that his ball striking technique is still very lacking and need practice to improve. No power and no precision.
In comparison, look at Mateta’s goal vs Brighton. This is good ball striking technique with power and precision and not the only time I had seen him scoring this type of goal.
The only time that I have ever seen Hojlund demonstrate good ball striking was his goal vs spurs. When a striker has a good ball striking technique, he can score in tight angle.
Man can’t jump, every high ball sent up the field he was out jumped, it’s like he doesn’t even try to jump to win it also his awareness of space is on existent, he will latch on to a defender in the box when there’s space to be had, I can remember 1 situation like this on Thursday he never pulled away back post when he had a chance.
It is easier to take a shot when the actual ball goes in to the box, and at the end of games when we are panicking, chasing a result, we do put more people forward and just put balls in the box. Something we are very reluctant to do in earlier phases.
Rasmus however is annoying, sometimes he makes great runs and the ball doesn’t come in and then there are other times when like Ugarte brok the back line, Ugarte only real option is to put that across the box but Rasmus has decided to hang back for a cutback that is never coming. Did the same later when Dorgu had a similar situation.
Maybe he was fed up of watching every ball cut back behind his runs for others and thought, nah I’m getting a shot away, but he really seems to lack the instinct or timing to sniff out a goal.
Maybe it’s confidence, maybe he has had it trained out of him and he is just robotically making that front post run all the time to create the space inbehind, but whatever happens I hope we can work with him in pre-season and spark some sort of life from him.
Thought he was good against Lyon, good link up and created chances for others but no one really returned the favor when he had taken up good positions.
Can't help but feel the main reason for that is that none of his teammates rate him at all and believe passing to him is a great way of wasting the opportunity.
You would have to look at these 40 Højlund shots and Mateta's last 40 shots for the comparison to be meaningful in any way. And there are obviously good strikes among these 40 shots by Højlund, although not enough. If the only good Højlund strike you've seen was his Spurs goal, you haven't even watched the entire clip shared, let alone all his goals from last season.
Yeah, because Garnacho is only a selfish player when the pass to Højlund is on..
Who is going to get in the CF position ahead of Hojlund in this seasons PL worse team of the year? Given the amount of minutes he’s had, he’s comfortably owning the slot right now.
I don't even think the formation is defensive, we just don't have enough attacking quality in positions which matter.
Hojlund really struggles because he's bad on the ball but particularly bad at finding the spaces needed to shoot.
I also think that because he's so bad we overrate what really should be the bare minimum from a striker at United.
I'd go as far as saying thats a given. I am not sure whether a formation itself is attacking or defensive, it all depends on the playstyle and what kind of risks you take (are allowed to take). Lets face it, we lack quick thinking up front, very good dribbling, quick feet in tight spaces and only Bruno is capable of dangerous passes - if we can't attack with long balls in behind the defence we are lacklustre and sluggish, have been for quite some time. That makes attacking very difficult which then emphasizes the missing "quality" even more.
I agree. I'd add that he seems to not get the balance right between keeping the CBs occupied and getting himself in space. Too often, he is seen in physical battles with the CBs who deal with him reasonably well and make sure, he is never really in promising positions. I think, he is asked to do so, to push opposition away to give more space for the rest to play in but it seems that he is taking himself completely out by doing so. And given that the rest of the attacker don't show much, this engagement doesn't have anything to show for.
Thats the tricky part. At the end of the day, isolating players and thinking about what should they be able to do and what not is difficult because it is a team game. But no doubt, this season has been a hot mess particularly for Hojlund and some of the hopes about his potential have gone. I'd say though, that we are still a team that is pretty bad in generating high calibre chances on a regular basis and seem to rely a lot on moments and individual moments. Which is obviously a very very risky take when your players not even on paper are considered very good as it reduces the chances for those moments of brilliance.
My point is not to compare Hojlund and Mateta. My point is to demonstrate that Hojlund still needs to improve his ball striking. I only used Mateta’s goal as example of what good ball striking look like because the original poster didn’t understand what I meant by good ball striking.
Fair enough. I don't think anyone disputes that Højlund needs to improve his ball striking, but I would probably say it's one of the least concerning aspects of his game. I think he is being held back much more by his movement, first touch, and balance.
Capable of the odd fantastic goal but his positional sense is way off for a striker. Don't think that can be fixed but would give him another season to see if he can
Man Utd 0:1 Wolves
New
Utterly useless. Hopefully gone in the summer.
Personally have him up there as one of the worst we’ve had in my 30+ years that I’ve been watching United. Rooting for him and would love him to turn it around but he’s genuinely playing terrible and has been for a long time.
Finally he gets away from his marker and he does that!
Genuinely think Obi offers more
Nowhere near good enough. He’s become unacceptably bad. Conference quality at best
The quicker we move on for him, the better. A huge disappointment this season.
Even last year when he ended up with 16 he still looked a poor player with limited upside because of his technical limitations.
The job of a striker is to make things happen, to turn bad balls into good balls, to get shots off out of nothing, to cause disruption and panic by the threat they bring which ultimately ends with chances coming, if not to them then others.
The service excuse with Hojlund was always a shallow excuse for his failings in those areas, the guy is a good finisher but everything else in his game is not up to this level, an incredibly average player.
He has now played 88 games for the club and I would say for around 60 of them he has been in contention for being the worst player on the pitch. Maybe had 10-15 games when it has looked like he had any real ability.
The job of a striker is to make things happen, to turn bad balls into good balls, to get shots off out of nothing, to cause disruption and panic by the threat they bring which ultimately ends with chances coming, if not to them then others.
The service excuse with Hojlund was always a shallow excuse for his failings in those areas, the guy is a good finisher but everything else in his game is not up to this level, an incredibly average player.
He has now played 88 games for the club and I would say for around 60 of them he has been in contention for being the worst player on the pitch. Maybe had 10-15 games when it has looked like he had any real ability.
Hopefully this is the end of that ridiculous "well nobody ever creates anything for him" nonsense. He just isn't canny enough to ever be on the end of any of the good crosses that are put into the area. He's always "unlucky to be just a fraction away".
We simply HAVE to get rid of him this summer. He is so far from good enough it's untrue.
We simply HAVE to get rid of him this summer. He is so far from good enough it's untrue.
It’s beyond a joke now.
At the point where I think I could probably sneak a goal.
You just know he’s going to do feck all when you see his name on the line up.
Start Obi
At the point where I think I could probably sneak a goal.
You just know he’s going to do feck all when you see his name on the line up.
Start Obi
His name is now going in the worst ever signing category, easily top 3 for the transfer fee and performance output. He's hitting Donny Van Der Beek levels of useless, we need to cut our loss in the summer, it's not going to happen
Genuinely. I think I could do better.