Having a look at his goal record....I think its actually very very good, almost a great record for a teenager. I think Erling Haaland's numbers as a kid is skewing things a bit. He spends 1 and a half seasons at Copenhagen aged 17-18 scoring 5 goals in 32 games, with all goals coming in his second season there before he transferred to Sturm Graz in the winter window. He then spends the rest of the season there and a little bit of the start of the next season scoring 12 goals in 21 games aged 19. Then moves to Atalanta, is behind Zapata and Muriel who he then overtakes as a starter and scores 10 in 32 (20 of them starting). Adding to that he has scored 6 goals in 6 games since joining the Denmark national team..... that seems like a pretty good record/trajectory to me. Personally I have a sneaky feeling that given time the kid will surprise a lot of people.
I have a habit, of following my fellow countrymen in football, and I am very excited about this kid. I have had some concernes whether it was too early for him to make a move as big as the one to United might be, it probably might have been good for him to stay another year at Atalanta, and get more experience, more goals under his belt, but sometimes an opportunity arises, and you just can’t say no, and just need to seize the moment, and I have absolutely no doubt about his qualities. A former youth coach was asked to describe, where Højlund stood out, apart from the obvious, he said, that Højlund continually tried to improve himself, via extra training, extra hours in the weight room, learn more about the importance of diet and so forth. He is described, as being very focused, confident in his abilities, but with an understanding, that success as a pro footballer is not a given, and that he needs to work hard to improve.
I have watched most of his matches for Atalanta, and seen, as you describe, how he gradually was integrated over the first 4-5 months, started showing better and better form, and began scoring on a more regular basis and became a bigger and bigger factor in their attack as he got more continuous minutes on the field. For the national team he was more or less thrown in the team, and from the get go was asked to carry a heavy load because we seriously lacked goals, and he has scored 6 goals in his last 4 games, as a starter, maybe not against elite teams, but for a 20 year old, I think that is impressive. It's not certain that he will break through in United, or become a world class footballer, it never is, and it will take time, he is a long term investment for sure, but he has all the tools to succeed in my opinion. One thing he will contribute with, from his first minute on the field, is, determination, aggressiveness, and youthful eagerness, and with his physique, speed and technically abilities, other players will naturally benefit from his presence, because he will create space.
Højlund doesn't have a history of being injurie prone, so I'm not overly worried about his injurie, if treated right, but, whether he can handle the pressure from the media, fans and so forth, only time will tell, but, from what I’ve seen until now in his short career, I don’t see a reason why he shouldn’t be able to, again, I just hope, that he will not be rushed into games before he is absolutely ready physically, football fans and media are very unforgiving these days in regards to “bad” performances, and for a young person, it might be harder to recover, from a bad start.