There’s a real player in there, I’m certain of it. He’s shown more than enough glimpses now, but we need to see whether he can stay fit firstly. That has ultimately been his biggest issue.
9
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 12
- Goals
- 2
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 0
The narrative around Højlund will be very dependent on how the team does. If we improve our general play and create chances, I think he could get 20 goals across competitions, and that would be considered a success and a good step up from last year. If the team sucks, he will struggle and take a large share of the blame.
It's pretty clear to me, that he is a better option than Zirkzee though, so he will get a lot of starts if he remains fit. ETH tends to take him off early, which is kind of a shame, but maybe better to keep him healthy for a full season.
It's pretty clear to me, that he is a better option than Zirkzee though, so he will get a lot of starts if he remains fit. ETH tends to take him off early, which is kind of a shame, but maybe better to keep him healthy for a full season.
The deception on the finish was lovely and shows the variety to his game that may surprise a few going by previous comments. I think he like the hustle and bustle of the league and when we keep the tempo high we see the best of him. Definitely not lumbering.
That’s your best post to date, mate.
Edit: would’ve posted a laughing emoji, but can’t. You deserve it, though!
Around the 36 min mark…
Ive been saying this for a while now. He should hate playing with our wingers. Our wingers first priority is to shoot not create.
Exactly. They’re way too fecking selfish.
I've been saying it for a while when criticism of Højlund's movement has come up (not that his movement is perfect or anything). It's extremely difficult to time runs in the box when you have no idea how many times the guy with the ball will try and work and angle for a shot before finally giving up and passing. And while the guy with the ball is doing that the box quickly becomes more congested as defenders get back in position.
Someone like Biancheri in the youth teams scores a fair few goals simply because the wide players passes it across goal or cuts it back at the first opportunity.
Exactly. It’s almost as if our wingers are coached to shoot rather than pass. It’s very frustrating.
He does have variety in his finishing, which is a real attribute to every top striker. He can hit them hard( the goal v Spurs), he can hit them first time(the Aston Villa goal), he can finish smart(lob vs Brentford), he can go right if needed(the goal v Newcastle), even though he is lefty.
I'm not sure about his heading, as I haven't seen too many crosses put in for him, as our wingers like to cut in and shoot.
All we need is for him to stay fit.
The only thing I'd note on that last point is that low shot volume can be down to the player as well as (or instead of) the team. He had relatively low shot volume at Atalanta too, which probably also relates directly to that lack of "wastefulness".
Hojlund is amazing. He is definitely better than Zirkzee. Or Martial in his last season.
Whilst service absolutely is an issue, he definitely does shoot less than he should. There was a good example against Brentford where he got played through to the right of the 6 yard box and he double faked first on his right and then again back to his left where the defender got a block; he already had a clear right foot shooting opportunity the first time round. Was quite surprising as he had a pretty good first time right foot strike rate towards the end of last season (Newcastle and Brighton come to mind).
I think the ball got played back out again and that's when Rashford crossed for Garnacho's goal so it wasn't an 'important' miss but it could have been. Either way, glad he got the winning goal because that was a confident and classy finish so confidence might be quite high.
So our currently tactics basically ask Rashford and Garnacho to finish a lot, leaving the striker serviceless. If that’s the tactic then I can understand why we bought Zirkzee, as he’s more of a “Firmino”/9/who sets up others. The problem is Rashford and Garnacho aren’t firing away with goals. They are not clinical.
It’s almost like you’d want two tactical approaches then. One with Amad and Højlund (and Garnacho) where the striker - Højlund - is serviced more, and one where the wings Garnacho and Rashford are serviced by the striker.
Obviously the solution is to find out which of the two works best and tweak accordingly. The start-stop effect and muddy setup from Ten Hag is what really hinders either one of them from progressing imo. He’s too afraid of dropping Rashford and therefore the whole setup becomes dependent on Rashford. I love him as a person, but INEOS should really figure out what the player types we need should be and probably sell Rashford to make us progress if he can’t fit that profile.
At City every player is essentially the same cog in the system which makes both competition good and replacement easy. Hopefully Berrada is painfully aware of this.
It’s almost like you’d want two tactical approaches then. One with Amad and Højlund (and Garnacho) where the striker - Højlund - is serviced more, and one where the wings Garnacho and Rashford are serviced by the striker.
Obviously the solution is to find out which of the two works best and tweak accordingly. The start-stop effect and muddy setup from Ten Hag is what really hinders either one of them from progressing imo. He’s too afraid of dropping Rashford and therefore the whole setup becomes dependent on Rashford. I love him as a person, but INEOS should really figure out what the player types we need should be and probably sell Rashford to make us progress if he can’t fit that profile.
At City every player is essentially the same cog in the system which makes both competition good and replacement easy. Hopefully Berrada is painfully aware of this.
I can't agree with the last paragraph at all. City have a horse's for courses approach with their wingers, and their overall play markedly changes when they have Silva&Grealish on the wings compared to when Doku&Savinho are on. Having different options ought to be a good thing.
He really isn’t. He has some very good moments, but he has a lot to work on. I don’t see anything special about him to warrant the original fee - even in this time of inflated prices - or see him becoming anything more than above average to good. He’s young, so he has time. But he needs to play consistently, improve his all round game, and hope we support him better in the final third.
I think he could be great, but at the moment he's hindered by the lack of supply from the team and his own confidence at times. Couldn't believe how bad he was for Denmark in the Euros. Expected him to really kick on and have a break out tournament having scored quite a few in qualifying and then his promising 2nd half of the season for us leading up to it. And feared it would hinder him for us again, but thankfully he seems to have found his confidence in front of goal again.
With his pace and finishing with both feet I think he's got the potential to hit 20 league goals a season in future, but with the caveat that he needs to stay fit and have less selfish team mates to achieve that.
His potential does make the Zirkzee signing all the more baffling though, surely we needed an experienced goalscoring forward for Hojlund to learn from/rotate with, rather than just more potential.
With his pace and finishing with both feet I think he's got the potential to hit 20 league goals a season in future, but with the caveat that he needs to stay fit and have less selfish team mates to achieve that.
His potential does make the Zirkzee signing all the more baffling though, surely we needed an experienced goalscoring forward for Hojlund to learn from/rotate with, rather than just more potential.
The solution to this puzzle is hidden within your own post...
Why did you expect that? Denmark had been pretty awful from around the time of the Qatar WC and struggled with creating chances outside of Eriksen pulling something out of a hat. It felt like we scraped through our qualifying group for the euros in spite of it being one of the easiest I can remember us having. And then we got through our group with three draws.
We're still not really playing that well even though there's been a bit of improvement with the introduction of some new players in the fold. At the moment we don't even have a new permanent head coach after Hjulmand retired.
Could you define average then? Because there are very few players as clinical as him at this level and even fewer strikers at his age with a skill set as promising as his.
The fee is irrelevant in a discussion about his ability - that’s on the club and not his fault. And the other things you mention really hasn’t got much to do with it either - yes, he needs to play regularly instead of being injured and get more service, but that’s not really up to him, is it?
Just have my doubts over Zirkzee...and whilst Bruno is around he's never going to start regularly with Hojlund.
Why did you expect that? Denmark had been pretty awful from around the time of the Qatar WC and struggled with creating chances outside of Eriksen pulling something out of a hat. It felt like we scraped through our qualifying group for the euros in spite of it being one of the easiest I can remember us having. And then we got through our group with three draws.
We're still not really playing that well even though there's been a bit of improvement with the introduction of some new players in the fold. At the moment we don't even have a new permanent head coach after Hjulmand retired.
Admittedly it was based on that statistically he seemed to be doing well for Denmark, and then was having a good 2024 for us, rather than actually having a clue what Denmark were like as a team going into the tournament...
Fenerbahce 1:1 Man Utd
New
If I had to play with these wingers id hand in a transfer request after every fecking game.
Even if he was fed nothing, there are visible improvements to his game. Shielding and drawing fouls for starters
Unlucky with the right footed shot.
Unless he’s at risk of injury - he should be playing every game. He needs goals / confidence.
People rarely look at appearances with strikers, it’s just your goals scored over a season.
ETH doesn’t give any of the attack a chance to develop some rhythm or consistency.
He’ll start against West Ham, and likely be hooked around the time we really need a goal.
People rarely look at appearances with strikers, it’s just your goals scored over a season.
ETH doesn’t give any of the attack a chance to develop some rhythm or consistency.
He’ll start against West Ham, and likely be hooked around the time we really need a goal.
Should have started. Keep him confident after his goal last game.
Did more in the first few mins being on to impact our overall game than Zirkzee did all game. He needs to be played from the off/attack built round him. He's our only striker.
Yeah, he looks both stronger and smarter than last year. Good signs.
Hopefully yes, his goal vs Brentford showed us class and composure.
Nice to see him using his strength a bit more. Decent sub appearance, should be starting.
Our best attacker atm I would say
It feels like it's his time to explode, just stay away from injuries and it could be the start of a run for RH9.
My bad on the late reply, but yeah I fully agree with the goals you’ve cited as good examples of what he can do when presented with chances.
I think he has potential in the air but it’s not really a big part of his game due to how teams have played that he has been in. I do think it’s a aspect that we should be taking advantage of with him though.
Hopefully he can go on a run as we need goals.
West Ham 2:1 Man Utd
New
11 goals in 35 Premier League games after costing £70 million, just not that good really.
Abit meh. One decent effort from outside the box and a couple a simple passes.
And this is our main forward.
And this is our main forward.
Not really much to work with when you have two of the most selfish wingers in the world. The one time Garnacho did pass to him, he made a pretty nice dribble but keeper was out before he could finish.
He's always about 10 yards from where you expect your striker to be. Mctomminay had better striker instincts. This guy doesn't make it here.
No threat whatsoever.
Non entity today.
Well he didnt score in his first 14 pl matches or so. After that his record is good. He’s playing with a selfish winger, an uninterested lazy one and a number 10 who tries an over the top hollywood pass everytime hes on the ball. I’ll only judge him once we have some sort of cohesion going forward