Rasmus Hojlund | Napoli

Shark said:
Wished him all the best when the move happened, but really still not understanding these posts. What are these makings of a very good striker, is it movement? strength? finishing is maybe decent along with pace if he gets away, long shots are non existent, volley's not existent, headers non existent. Just not seeing it at all.
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I also don't really get it, and I've watched him a lot for both United and Denmark. I'd say he has somewhat decent pace and finishing. He also seems pretty strong, but mostly fails to use that strength effectively. Something that is maybe a bit underrated about him, is his vision and passing ability - I think we've seen some good examples of weighted through balls and deep passes (nothing exceptional, but decent).

But as you say, there are way more weaknesses than strengths. Poor first touch, poor balance, relatively bad aerial ability, not great movement or decision making, pretty bad hold-up play.

A lot of it seems to be based on people liking him, because he is a United fan and hasn't behaved terribly while he's been here. I personally don't see how he's any different from someone like Dalot, who also seems like a very good professional, but who most fans seem to despise, because he isn't very good.
 
Mike Smalling said:
I personally don't see how he's any different from someone like Dalot, who also seems like a very good professional, but who most fans seem to despise, because he isn't very good.
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It may be you’re right, but why do fans “despise” anyone unless they’ve behaved badly? That I’ll never understand.
 
Schmeichels pinky said:
It may be you’re right, but why do fans “despise” anyone unless they’ve behaved badly? That I’ll never understand.
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Fans don't despise the individual maybe. But fans do despise the worrying pattern of journeymen footballers getting to wear our hallowed red shirt for years with no performance accountability whatsoever. Fans despise these sub par players stealing a living off us and being given more chances than they deserve. A player such as Dalot wouldn't last a season under SAF. But yeah we're a different club now. Demanding performance and standards is of secondary importance now.
 
Shark said:
Wished him all the best when the move happened, but really still not understanding these posts. What are these makings of a very good striker, is it movement? strength? finishing is maybe decent along with pace if he gets away, long shots are non existent, volley's not existent, headers non existent. Just not seeing it at all.
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I thought his positioning was decent and he suffered quite a bit from a lack of service last season. Garnacho seemed greedier than ever and just wouldn't put the ball into the middle and would shoot from crap angles himself. I'd have fancied him to do better this season alongside Mbeumo and Cunha with better service.
 
Adisa said:
Hope he proves people wrong.
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I hope he does well, but I'm not sure what's there to prove wrong.

Even if he lights up Serie A and scores 30 goals, it doesn't change the fact he was appalling for us up front. Its not like he wasn't given chances, he practically had no competition up front for the best part of two seasons, where he looked to be getting increasingly worse. He might just be poorly suited for the Premier League, happens to a lot of prolific strikers in Europe who try their luck in England and up underwhelming.
 
StamsShinyHead said:
I thought his positioning was decent and he suffered quite a bit from a lack of service last season. Garnacho seemed greedier than ever and just wouldn't put the ball into the middle and would shoot from crap angles himself. I'd have fancied him to do better this season alongside Mbeumo and Cunha with better service.
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That's fair enough, but what about of the other things? arriving in the box for a low ball or cross from a winger is just one of many ways for a striker to score. If he wasn't thriving off that, there should have been other ways for him to deliver goals but he was so incredibly weak in so many other areas. Already you can see that Sesko is at least getting shots off and arriving to headers, not to amazing effect but you can see proper potential there.
 
Kaos said:
I hope he does well, but I'm not sure what's there to prove wrong.

Even if he lights up Serie A and scores 30 goals, it doesn't change the fact he was appalling for us up front. Its not like he wasn't given chances, he practically had no competition up front for the best part of two seasons, where he looked to be getting increasingly worse. He might just be poorly suited for the Premier League, happens to a lot of prolific strikers in Europe who try their luck in England and up underwhelming.
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I think it's the right move and I think there's a case to be made that he wasn't right for the PL (in the same way you might be able to argue that it was just the wrong timing, too soon, with the inadequate structure to foster his development).

However, to the bolded, if he goes and scores 30 goals, or even 15 goals, he will absolutely prove wrong many, many posters who have been saying he's dogshit or a terrible footballer in general, with no nuance whatsoever.
 
hellhunter said:
There are always some examples like the Inter CL finalists, but I'd say it's not really true. McT probably the biggest example where it worked out, but for everyone like him you can name three that went on to do nothing
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My thoughts, too. Useful team players maybe, but rarely great.

Seeing Cunha and Mbeumo makes me realise just how average most of our players have been for years. We complain we don't get good transfer fees for outgoing players but maybe we just get roughly what they are really worth.
 
GGMUFinest said:
“He should’ve scored more” almost like the issues solely lay with him to rectify when the team was nothing short of terrible to play in for a young striker I’d imagine 9 out of 10 strikers would have failed in that set up only reason I don’t put 10/10 is there is no guarantees.
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He had plenty of chances. Let's not pretend he had a terrible year.
 
Schmeichels pinky said:
I’m not disputing your right to post, am I? Just pointing out something that obviously hits a nerve. And you’ve not just written that they’re better than him, you’ve defended Garnas behaviour as well. I’ll let you be
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Thanks.
 
He looks good in that kit, but I reckon anyone would.
 
He seemed pretty abysmal for you but maybe it wasn't the right set up and environment for him, so either way is better to cut your losses early, move on and wish him the best elsewhere.
 
Mike Smalling said:
I also don't really get it, and I've watched him a lot for both United and Denmark. I'd say he has somewhat decent pace and finishing. He also seems pretty strong, but mostly fails to use that strength effectively. Something that is maybe a bit underrated about him, is his vision and passing ability - I think we've seen some good examples of weighted through balls and deep passes (nothing exceptional, but decent).

But as you say, there are way more weaknesses than strengths. Poor first touch, poor balance, relatively bad aerial ability, not great movement or decision making, pretty bad hold-up play.

A lot of it seems to be based on people liking him, because he is a United fan and hasn't behaved terribly while he's been here. I personally don't see how he's any different from someone like Dalot, who also seems like a very good professional, but who most fans seem to despise, because he isn't very good.
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Less based on people liking him, and more based on his first season with the club when he put up 16 goals and more in depth he posted 0.5 G+A per 90 as a 20 year old in the league, 0.93 G+A per 90 in the Champions League as a 20 year old. He has pace, strength, decent finishing ability with both feet despite obviously being stronger one side than the other, and is a good passer as you mentioned. And he's still only 21 when most players don't start to peak until 23-25.

He was not good last season. The entire club was not good. That said, he still managed 0.72 G+A per 90 in the Europa League.

He does fail to use his strength effectively at times. He does time runs poorly at times. His hold up play needs work. Decision making is a work in progress. That's mostly true of ALL 21 year old strikers.
 
Kaos said:
I hope he does well, but I'm not sure what's there to prove wrong.

Even if he lights up Serie A and scores 30 goals, it doesn't change the fact he was appalling for us up front. Its not like he wasn't given chances, he practically had no competition up front for the best part of two seasons, where he looked to be getting increasingly worse. He might just be poorly suited for the Premier League, happens to a lot of prolific strikers in Europe who try their luck in England and up underwhelming.
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This isn't true at all. He was extremely poorly suited to a style that seems focused around CF hold up play, that's really all there is to it. We literally saw him as a young player do fine, without being great, in a set up where he's running onto things and not expected to be part of build up. If he scores 30 goals in the Serie A, that would put him amongst the elite of the elite (he definitely won't get 30 goals!)
 
tomaldinho1 said:
This isn't true at all. He was extremely poorly suited to a style that seems focused around CF hold up play, that's really all there is to it. We literally saw him as a young player do fine, without being great, in a set up where he's running onto things and not expected to be part of build up. If he scores 30 goals in the Serie A, that would put him amongst the elite of the elite (he definitely won't get 30 goals!)
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He will most certainly not score 30 goals, he will be happy with half of it. We literally saw him as a young player do fine in Italiaan league from highlights in a small sample, he's don eaverage job at best in his first season( continued with a catastrophic second) with a purple patch and nothing in betweeen. Nothing to help the team build attacks and okay goal numbers for first season. In second he confirmed he can neither score goals nor help the team to create attacks with anything modern striker should posses. Hold up play should be a one of the basic skills of a classic no9, unless you are Aguero and is world class finisher and dribbler, which he's very poor at as well.

Sure he will do much better in less intense league in one of the best teams ho just won scudetto compared to team in transition like United, but he was a part of last season failure, he missed so many chances and did feck all, he deserved to be transfered out same way Onana is being talked about being replaced for his failure to perform. I'd even say he was even worse than Onana.

He's a good guy but we aint no charity and need to move players who are not good enough to move on. simple as that.
 
Is it correctly understood that Napoli is only obligated to buy Højlund if they qualify for the Champions League?
 
Hester_manc said:
Is it correctly understood that Napoli is only obligated to buy Højlund if they qualify for the Champions League?
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You would have to think they almost certainly will. And even if they don’t, they still retain the option and may choose to use it anyway.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
This isn't true at all. He was extremely poorly suited to a style that seems focused around CF hold up play, that's really all there is to it. We literally saw him as a young player do fine, without being great, in a set up where he's running onto things and not expected to be part of build up. If he scores 30 goals in the Serie A, that would put him amongst the elite of the elite (he definitely won't get 30 goals!)
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What if we ignore his whole United career and focus solely on his Denmark career over two years?
 
I am not sure he can mimick Lukaku's body work with the ball, but I'm pretty confident he will convert chances at higher percentage because of lesser expectations and Conte's positional plays.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Why would that have any bearing on someone hitting 30 goals in Serie A?
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None of the last 5 winners of Serie A’s top goalscorer managed to hit 30…
  • 2024/25: Mateo Retegui (Atalanta) - 25 goals
  • 2023/24: Lautaro Martínez (Inter Milan) - 24 goals
  • 2022/23: Victor Osimhen (Napoli) - 26 goals
  • 2021/22: Ciro Immobile (Lazio) - 27 goals
  • 2020/21: Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus) - 29 goals
 
This one is a shame.

I have his name on the back of our wonderfully ugly humbug shirt.

Really wanted it to work.

Seems like a nice, genuine lad with great work ethic, I genuinely wish him the best, I hope he tears it up no matter where he goes.
 
Lay said:
Conte should be able to turn him into a good striker.

I do have to reiterate, buying him after 9 goals in just 6 months of football for an extortionate amount is still baffling. Not sure what the club were thinking when he was so inexperienced.
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It really was an amazing purchase!! What did the scouts see that justified that price ?
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Why would that have any bearing on someone hitting 30 goals in Serie A?
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Not that you needed me to say, but of course, I was referring to your point about him doing fine and just being in a set-up unsuited to him at United, which was also part of your post, not just a line about him scoring 30 in Serie A.
 
jeff gurr said:
It really was an amazing purchase!! What did the scouts see that justified that price ?
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To be fair, Napoli’s scouts also justified 50m following an even more paltry output in terms of league goals at an older age, so there are certainly believers in his talent in the game out there.

I think Napoli and Conte in particular seem to have a view that they can buy and refurbish United scrap parts, and see us as the issue. Conte has taken several at Inter, and Napoli of course too McTominay, tried to buy Maguire and Garnacho and have now bought Hojlund. They also showed an interest in Mainoo, although his talent is perhaps the most obvious of all to be fair.
 
Rozay said:
Not that you needed me to say, but of course, I was referring to your point about him doing fine and just being in a set-up unsuited to him at United, which was also part of your post, not just a line about him scoring 30 in Serie A.
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I'm not sure I have seen a single Denmark game the last two years. Are you Danish? If so then I'll trust your take, if not then why are you watching so many games from a random country?

I still don't really get your point - I am talking about something that literally happened and we saw, if he was bad for Denmark in that time I don't get how you think it proves/disproves anything.
 
Pintu said:
None of the last 5 winners of Serie A’s top goalscorer managed to hit 30…
  • 2024/25: Mateo Retegui (Atalanta) - 25 goals
  • 2023/24: Lautaro Martínez (Inter Milan) - 24 goals
  • 2022/23: Victor Osimhen (Napoli) - 26 goals
  • 2021/22: Ciro Immobile (Lazio) - 27 goals
  • 2020/21: Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus) - 29 goals
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Hence why it would be mental if he (or anyone) did that.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
I'm not sure I have seen a single Denmark game the last two years. Are you Danish? If so then I'll trust your take, if not then why are you watching so many games from a random country?

I still don't really get your point - I am talking about something that literally happened and we saw, if he was bad for Denmark in that time I don't get how you think it proves/disproves anything.
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I didn’t give you a number of games for you to determine the amount to be ‘so many’. In any case, I watch their games for a number of reasons (not that my reasons for watching a football match are relevant) - including tracking bets, entertainment/love of football, but mainly - hope that Hojlund can do something. Something that may lead to an increase in confidence which would ultimately benefit United, which is of greater concern to me. Or an increase in my own confidence in him. But generally, I left those games feeling that there wasn’t much there to work with. But I was desperate for something, anything.

And to simplify my point to hopefully avoid confusion, Hojlund has been equally terrible for Denmark in the same period and has looked poor on a football pitch, not exclusively in a United shirt. Perhaps his poor form is not solely down to system issues as he has failed to perform across two teams, for long periods. He has also failed to perform, in his career as a whole - for far longer than he has ever performed, so I generally take issue with any suggestion that he is a player that everyone has agreed is very good, and any performance issues are down to a third party/context. I have seen him miss big chances via a combination of poor touches, poor finishing and poor positioning for Denmark too, and go two years (ish) without a goal for them.

I didn’t even address your point about a hypothetical amount of Serie A goals. If and when he scores 30 goals, the conversation on him will of course change accordingly. But not before. If he scores 30, he’ll get spoken about how people speak about strikers who score 30. And if he scores 4, well… his performance thread answers that.
 
I would have kept him to play alongside Sesko when we're 2/3 of the way through a game and need goals. £40 million is a decent amount of money back on what we paid based on whats hes done so far so I'm not too unhappy about that. I just feel like theres no way he wouldnt be better this season than last season and if the team is better (due in part to signing a better forward) then he'd also hve some games where we're ahead and he can come on to give Sesko a break and would hopefully get some goals against tiring opposition

I'll go ahead and predict he'll get 9 or so Serie A goals if he's playing much
 
Rozay said:
I didn’t give you a number of games for you to determine the amount to be ‘so many’. In any case, I watch their games for a number of reasons (not that my reasons for watching a football match are relevant) - including tracking bets, entertainment/love of football, but mainly - hope that Hojlund can do something. Something that may lead to an increase in confidence which would ultimately benefit United, which is of greater concern to me. Or an increase in my own confidence in him. But generally, I left those games feeling that there wasn’t much there to work with. But I was desperate for something, anything.

And to simplify my point to hopefully avoid confusion, Hojlund has been equally terrible for Denmark in the same period and has looked poor on a football pitch, not exclusively in a United shirt. Perhaps his poor form is not solely down to system issues as he has failed to perform across two teams, for long periods. He has also failed to perform, in his career as a whole - for far longer than he has ever performed, so I generally take issue with any suggestion that he is a player that everyone has agreed is very good, and any performance issues are down to a third party/context. I have seen him miss big chances via a combination of poor touches, poor finishing and poor positioning for Denmark too, and go two years (ish) without a goal for them.

I didn’t even address your point about a hypothetical amount of Serie A goals. If and when he scores 30 goals, the conversation on him will of course change accordingly. But not before. If he scores 30, he’ll get spoken about how people speak about strikers who score 30. And if he scores 4, well… his performance thread answers that.
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The fact you've gone so above and beyond to justify something makes me think you haven't watched any of their games to be honest.

All that has happened is a poster said it won't mean anything if he hits 30 goals in Serie A (as is evident it will be an incredible goal scoring feat) and that I believe he suits (as evidenced by watching United) a direct style. Same as Lukaku. Hence why Conte wants him. He might not do well, he might do great, but someone else has already called you out for just being overly negative on this. We get it, you don't rate him, you don't need to write an essay at every person who disagrees with you.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
The fact you've gone so above and beyond to justify something makes me think you haven't watched any of their games to be honest.

All that has happened is a poster said it won't mean anything if he hits 30 goals in Serie A (as is evident it will be an incredible goal scoring feat) and that I believe he suits (as evidenced by watching United) a direct style. Same as Lukaku. Hence why Conte wants him. He might not do well, he might do great, but someone else has already called you out for just being overly negative on this. We get it, you don't rate him, you don't need to write an essay at every person who disagrees with you.
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I haven’t gone above and beyond. I said what I said, you challenged me and asked me a direct question. So I answered it. My initial post to you was also a sentence, not an essay, which again - you asked me to clarify/elaborate - so I did.
 
Blame should sit firmly with both ten Hag and Murtough for bringing him in without a proven striker to play behind. It was doomed to fail and I hope he lights it up at Napoli.
 
jeff gurr said:
It really was an amazing purchase!! What did the scouts see that justified that price ?
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The same things Napoli sees now, I guess. Youtube compilations don’t show half the picture, but in the case of strikers they’re more useful than with other players since their main job is to score goals. If you watch the highlights from his first season here it’s evident he has some ability as other posters have described. And if you kept an eye on him, as I did, in every match he played for us that season you’d see him contributing much more to our chance creation than many people think.
So Napoli and other clubs (and most professionals in football) know he has some of the quite rare skills a striker needs and believe they can develop his talent. They see last season as evidence not that he’s a bad player, but that he played in a dysfunctional team and got his confidence shot.

None of that means that he was a right buy for us for the money we paid. It does explain, however, why big clubs are still interested in him - and why he was touted as one of the biggest striker talents in Europe - despite what random fans want to believe.
 
Shark said:
That's fair enough, but what about of the other things? arriving in the box for a low ball or cross from a winger is just one of many ways for a striker to score. If he wasn't thriving off that, there should have been other ways for him to deliver goals but he was so incredibly weak in so many other areas. Already you can see that Sesko is at least getting shots off and arriving to headers, not to amazing effect but you can see proper potential there.
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exactly, his movement didnt help as well.. its not a coincidence why garnacho (or other forwards) got much more chances despite being greedy most of the time

hes actually big, pretty fast, his conversion is decent.. however, so many fundamental aspects need to be developed in him

he also looked weak for a person as huge as him and lost most of the time, literally dont know how he could manage to score 16 goals in his first season, while he was actually poor half of the season

Apart from that, he is a great professional. no drama, no toxic behavior, tried his best every time he is on the pitch.. everything just didnt work out and move on. really wish him to thrive in serie A
 
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