Guys expecting him to score 25-30 goals in his first Serie A on an Atalanta side, when he was only 19 for the majority of the season.
Rasmus Højlund | Signed for United
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
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Yes and we have that lack of experience as well. We won’t be winning a CL and/or Prem. But we can win a domestic trophy again and push City much closer. (That being said City only really found their groove later on in the season that I don’t think they’ll have as much of a stuttering start this season)
I get why you'd be cautious about the idea of him being able to translate from one league to the other, but in general terms it isn't so unlikely for a player to do so that we couldn't hope for it.
Looking at the other goalscorers who were topping the charts for npG per 90 last season and comparing the last season in another league versus their first in the PL...
Those who stepped up immediately:
Haaland - 0.75 to 0.94
Salah - 0.55 to 0.95.
Isak - 0.17 to 0.47
Firmino - 0.22 to 0.46
Awoniyi - 0.54 to 0.64
Rodrigo - 0.19 to 0.49
Jesus - 0.48 to 0.83
Those who didn't:
Alvarez - 1.02 to 0.49
Mitrovic - 0.57 to 0.30
Nunez - 1.00 to 0.48
Gakpo - 0.56 to 0.43
And given Alvarez and Nunez were returning over a goal a game previously, you might argue some drop off was inevitable in their cases regardless of the league.
Basically the strikers who are doing well at the moment having come from a foreign league tended to have hit the ground running when they first arrived. If you think Hojlund is talented enough to be a success here generally, it doesn't seem unreasonable to hope his current rate of returns might more or less survive the transfer from another league straight away.
Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at as regards the new striker / Hojlund as an option.
Of course, if we could afford any of the few elite level strikers - or clubs were willing to sell them - then I'd much prefer that option, such as Kane or Osimhen.
But it looks like we can't fish in that very select pond and so we're looking at the much bigger amount of players in the tier below - that all come with the 'gamble / there's better options out there' label.
Of those, which it looks like we're going to have to select one of, then I'm perfectly happy with Hojlund if we can get him for a sensible price. Yes, there's 'better out there' than him, but none that we can realistically get this summer by the looks of it, so he's not much better or worse than most of the other attainable targets and should, hopefully, continue to improve.
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Isak's improvement in goalscoring is impressive. Really annoying he wasn't available this summer.
Know nothing about this guy, is he what we need or is he just a BTEC Haaland?
Tbf he was coming off a bad season for Sociedad, his previous ones had been better. Though that also kinda makes it a better buy on Newcastle's part as it was less of a sure thing than if he had been killing it the prior season.
Barring release clauses, this is how every transfer works for every team. An offer or two rejected, then a third bid accepted.
I guess we can work on multiple deals at the same time.
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Yeah I remember Arsenal being pretty strongly linked at one point so he was obviously on the big club's radars. Newcastle are in that enviable position where they've got unlimited cash to take as many expensive punts as they like while expectations remain relatively low.
Yeah but those are exceptional talents, except the Chelsea signings(Bohely is insanse) Rasmus is not in the same league
Seems to be ambitious with a big personality
I’d trust ETH if he wants him
I’d trust ETH if he wants him
I hope we're also in market for a more experienced forward to be honest
How could you possibly state that with such confidence? My bet is that you've never watched him, but seen a few highlights videos on YouTube.
Tchouameni is 3 years older and hasn't exactly been exceptional, has he? He's been good, but nothing extraordinary.
Enzo Fernandez has been great, but is also two years older and cost twice as much as Højlund will cost.
Bellingham, while he has been great in Bundesliga, hasn't even played a game for Real Madrid and we'll just have to see if he'll live up to his hype.
We cannot pay for this kid more than what City paid for Haaland (the figure that they put out anyway).
But we haven’t had our pants pulled down for either Onana (paying less than ehat they want) or Mount. (Paid what we wanted £55M & they slapped on a £5M add on which we negotiated to, if achieved, we all would be happy. We paid £55M when chelsea wanted 70-80m!
Varane, Martinez, Casemiro & to an extent Rashford & De Gea (played in very big games over the years) all have tons more experience than the majority of Arsenal’s side.
Haaland had a stupidly low release clause for Dortmund, which we famously agreed NOT to have. Hence why he went for so cheap. You can’t compare the Haaland price for that very reason.
Depressing
It's two very different cases, of course we can.
It's not pointless b/c you don't like the point made. For his output, paying that much money is an enormous risk, and nothing you pointed out negates that.
You also seem to be conflating price with availability. There are lots of good strikers available this summer that would fit the standard United are looking for, but for whatever reason United can't afford them.
I really want him to be a hit for us but can't help but have lots of question marks here
The jury is out for most of them. And he wouldn't cost the same as them.
Denmark is a BTEC Norway so yeah
How can you stick with someone who is never available.
All he needs in his first season is to be better than last season’s Martial - it’s a very easy target to achieve. He can score 12-13 in EPL and 20 across all competitions and it will already be excellent upgrade
So what's you call then ? how much and on who ? and please, please don't give me the Kane/Osimhen that is/was never happening from day One.
He is in the 84th percentile for expected non-penalty goals, and I'd say that's absolutely fine. For actual goals he's in the 71th percentile, so it doesn't only indicate that he has been unlucky with his finishing, but also let down by his team mates.
Osimhen at 21, in his first season for Napoli, scored 10 goals, although he did it in slightly fewer minutes, but he also played in a more attacking team.
His second season he scored 14 goals. It really isn't that much more than Højlund.
You're making it look like Højlund's stats are trash. They're not great, but they're fine. I agree that he's a gamble, but one worth taking, imo.
That's what I meant. They're available on the market for the right price, but it's irrelevant to us as we can't afford them. And who are the other "lots of strikers" other than Kane and Osimhen that are available?
Because nobody else wants to buy him
Suggest a viable alternative.
We have no striker and we have been the lowest scoring side in the top 6 two years in a row.
The guy who was supposed to be the long term solution at CF went and abused his partner.
We are in a tight financial position this window due to gross financial mismanagement in the past.
No single club in this situation would not be screwed over by other clubs in the window.
Its either we persist with what we have, bring back Greenwood or we go and sign a promising to good centre forward somewhere.
Only Mbappe comes to mind
Come on man no need to be obtuse you’re really gonna come here and claim Rasmus is on the same level of potential as Bellingham and Tchouameni thats just daft
I'd honestly be shocked if Atalanta settle for anything below £70m for him. He's a young striker and I don't believe they're cash strapped. If a club like United comes in for a player his age at a relatively decent sized club, then they will be daft not to. Alternatively they would surely just wait until he grows in reputation and sell when other big clubs are interested also, rather than accepting a cut price deal now.
Wouldn't be the first nor last to be hyped up for sale to then slowly die down... Milinković Savić never got sold for big money and they tried to big him up summer after summer. Then there's Belotti who was also the next big thing, Kasper Dolberg, hell even Zaha never got sold because of the asking price.
Gamble goes both ways, they could also miss out on cashing in and see his value potentially drop.
Feels a bit underwhelming after months of speculation we would be signing a ready made striker one way or another, especially after a season of having score shy strikers. I can't help but feel next season will be a repeat of the last. This guy isn't going to walk in and transform our scoring record.
So what's he going to bring to us, when goals is exactly what we need?
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The question with all of those players is whether there were clubs even trying to sign them. I don't remember a club of our stature ever trying to sign Belotti or Dolberg. Zaha was signed for us and flopped. With SMS it felt like Lazio were trying to entice us and others to bid rather than there actually being genuine interest. If we are keen on Hojlund then they will demand big money I expect. Not only that but I reckon they'll sense desperation from us given that Kane and Osimhen are off the table. Whether we'll pay up is a different matter, but this talk of 35-45m euros just seems too good to be true. I reckon the reports of 100m euros is probably closer to the mark.
The striker market is so dead.. this guy seems pretty average to me.
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