On Tuesday night along Wharfside Way, a main road running adjacent to Old Trafford, a freshly printed and pasted billboard looked ahead to Bayern Munich’s visit that evening by asking: “Who put the ball in the Germans’ net?”
But that familiar question, posed by Manchester United fans ever since the 1999 Champions League final, had a different answer from usual. Rather than ‘Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’, it read: “Hopefully Rasmus Hojlund”.
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It was a nice idea — and just the right amount of syllables to scan with the original chant — but those hopes were not about to become a reality. United crashed out of the Champions League with a whimper, finishing bottom of Group A, and Hojlund was quiet.
Not that he always has been. In fact, Hojlund was arguably the single positive of United’s miserable European campaign and exited the Champions League as its joint-top scorer with five goals, notching against each of his Group A opponents, albeit always in defeats.
But on Tuesday night, he was isolated, dominated and comfortably kept at arm’s length by Bayern’s centre-back pairing of Dayot Upamecano and Kim Min-jae. On an evening when United needed to score and needed to win, Hojlund failed to register a single shot.
It was a performance altogether more in keeping with how he has fared in the Premier League, where, despite plenty of hard running and intelligent movement, he is still waiting for his first goal after 12 appearances, including nine starts.
Is this a cause for concern? As a raw, largely unproven striker signed for £64.2million ($81.1m) potentially rising to £72.8m, in some respects it is bound to be. But just as the price United paid was perhaps not a fair reflection of where Hojlund is at in his career, his goalscoring figures do not fully do his start to life at Old Trafford justice either.
For starters, he has at times been a little unlucky. His lack of Premier League goals would not have become such a talking point if, on his full debut in the 3-1 defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion, he had not seen a neat turn and finish disallowed after Marcus Rashford’s cross was judged to have marginally gone out of play. Or if he had connected to a low Rashford cross, which his stretching legs missed by millimetres as it flew across the face of goal.
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Then there was a golden opportunity against Luton Town last month too, only for Hojlund to be denied by a brilliant Thomas Kaminski save at point-blank range, or a similar clear-cut chance against Sheffield United in October that forced a save from Wes Foderingham.
Even if Hojlund’s attempted finish left something to be desired on each occasion, they have contributed to the sense he is taking up the right positions and coming close to capitalising. In the Premier League alone, Hojlund is underperforming his expected goals (xG) by 2.6 xG — more than all but five other top-flight players.
Yet, at the same time, an xG per 90 minutes of 0.30 is far from league-leading — it is less than Scott McTominay — and maybe that should not come as a total surprise.
Hojlund’s rise over the past two years from the fringes of Copenhagen’s first team has been rapid but even while breaking through at Sturm Graz and Atalanta, his shot output was good without being spectacular.
At United, it has fallen to 1.81 per 90 — a touch above Tottenham Hotspur’s Pedro Porro, level with Everton’s Abdoulaye Doucoure, though not as much as Fulham’s Bobby De Cordova-Reid.
Most shots per 90 in Premier League
Shots
| npxG per shot
| ||
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Darwin Nunez | 4.65 | 0.15 |
2 | Richarlison | 4.23 | 0.12 |
3 | Alejandro Garnacho | 3.81 | 0.07 |
4 | Erling Haaland | 3.76 | 0.22 |
5 | Callum Wilson | 3.52 | 0.24 |
80 | Rasmus Hojlund | 1.81 | 0.16 |
One simple way Hojlund’s shot volume could improve, however, is by getting on the ball more.
Throughout these early months of his Old Trafford career, there have been repeated complaints that his team-mates are not spotting his runs or passing to him regularly enough. On the surface level, that theory would appear to be supported by the data.
Hojlund has received 16.5 passes per 90 minutes in the Premier League this season — the fewest of any member of United’s first-team squad by a significant margin.
Centre-forwards are often on the ball less than their team-mates but contrast Hojlund’s numbers with Anthony Martial’s, who has averaged 29.6 passes received per 90 — almost twice as many.
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Then compare United’s passing networks from the 2-1 win over Chelsea and the defeat against Bayern with Hojlund starting, and the same from Saturday’s 3-0 loss to Bournemouth when he was replaced by Martial.
Hojlund’s isolation from his team-mates is stark and not only stands out in a United context.
Across the rest of the Premier League, only two other top-flight strikers have received fewer passes per 90 than Hojlund. The fact that one of them is Erling Haaland, who has 14 league goals despite seeing less of the ball than any of his peers, does not necessarily help his cause.
Fewest touches p90 in the Premier League
Touches
| Passes Received
| ||
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Erling Haaland | 20.2 | 15.4 |
2 | Rasmus Højlund | 24.7 | 16.5 |
3 | Taiwo Awoniyi | 25.4 | 18.2 |
4 | Yoane Wissa | 26.3 | 16.3 |
5 | Michail Antonio | 26.3 | 20.4 |
But City’s methodical, possession-based style prioritises control over all else and is practically designed not to give Haaland the ball until he is in a position to use it to devastating effect. It is unsurprising he should have so few touches.
United are far more direct than that under Erik ten Hag, seeking to move the ball up the pitch and into their forwards quickly, something often achieved through the playmaking abilities of Bruno Fernandes.
But a connection between United’s creator-in-chief and first-choice centre-forward has not materialised.
Fernandes has played the ball to Hojlund a total of 36 times in the Premier League and Champions League this season — the Dane being only the 12th-most regular recipient of his passes.
Such numbers are greatly influenced by the lack of playing time spent together, but Fernandes and Hojlund’s 1,312 minutes on the same pitch is a substantial chunk of United’s season. Still, the United captain has created more chances for Alejandro Garnacho, Antony and even Casemiro than he has for Hojlund.
And yet, at the same time, no other United player has passed to Hojlund more than Fernandes. In another indication of United’s directness this season, the player second-most likely to seek out the 20-year-old has been goalkeeper Andre Onana.
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Three or four more touches a game is unlikely to suddenly lift Hojlund to stratospheric levels of scoring, however.
Even then, he would largely be in line with other top-flight strikers such as Ollie Watkins, Callum Wilson and Alexander Isak — all of whom have better records in the league this season. He needs team-mates to play the right ball at the right time whereas of late, there have been several examples of the opposite happening.
One of the most glaring came in Saturday’s defeat against Bournemouth with the score still at 1-0 to the visitors.
Not long after the hour mark, Diogo Dalot was played in through the inside-right channel by Antony but passed up the opportunity to square the ball to Hojlund for a tap-in, instead electing to shoot at a narrowing angle, finding only the side netting. Bournemouth’s second — scored by Philip Billing — followed only moments later.
There was also the chance in the opening moments of the Manchester derby in late October, when Fernandes’ harrying of Josko Gvardiol allowed Hojlund to nip in and steal possession then lay the ball off to McTominay.
A return pass should have followed just as John Stones stepped up to leave Hojlund unmarked, and would have set him up for a clear sight of goal, but instead, McTominay carried on and his weak shot was gathered by Ederson.
And there was the moment on Hojlund’s first start against Brighton when, having been played in behind by his new Danish team-mate, Rashford elected to run at goal and shoot from a tight angle rather than return the favour and square.
In Rashford’s defence, a heavy touch made his decision for him and different angles showed the pass was harder to pull off than it looked, but that decision was heavily scrutinised in the aftermath of United’s defeat and, unfortunately for Hojlund, it was a sign of things to come.
A different decision in any one of those moments — and there are more examples, too — likely results in Hojlund’s Premier League duck being broken. Alternatively, if Hojlund could swap one of his five goals in Europe for his first domestic strike, he might not be under as much scrutiny.
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Which is why, rather than splitting his record so far into impressive and not-so-impressive chunks, it is better taken as a whole.
Across all competitions, five goals from 6.1 xG over 1,328 minutes — around 15 games’ worth — unquestionably leaves room for improvement. It is also a reasonable rate of return for a 20-year-old striker adapting to a new league and playing in a side that is struggling as badly as United, especially when he can legitimately complain about a lack of service.
Any difficulties Hojlund is having cannot easily be separated from United’s much wider issues.
Issues like how, while he may be waiting for his first league goal, the other three recognised centre-forwards Ten Hag has relied upon since his appointment — Martial, Wout Weghorst and Cristiano Ronaldo – have combined for a total of eight.
All but one of those eight goals were Martial’s. With United set to release the 28-year-old this summer, the burden to improve on that record will have to be carried by someone else — another centre-forward who can lead the line for years to come.
Despite a mixed start, there has still been enough evidence to suggest Hojlund can be that man.
(Top photo: Getty Images)
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