[Sandikan]

He's got the ultimate duff shift being with us in this period and he's already had a couple of layoffs because we over use him.

Having some wingers interested in setting him up could help though.

 

[redNATION]

How did we spend £110m on two strikers who can’t score goals and can’t even get the basics of being a good striker?

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

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

So the first 14 PL games don't count, but Zirkzee, who cost half the price, is only 9 games in and gets slated every game?

 

[Cathy Ferguson]

How did we spend £110m on two strikers who can’t score goals and can’t even get the basics of being a good striker?

Our scouting has not worked for 10 years. That is why we are in this mess. 150m spent on Antony and Sancho.

 

[V.O.]

Shame he had a poor game today and couldn't build off that great performance against Brentford.

Pretty funny how the usual cast of characters have turned up to do another victory lap about how shit a young United player is after being nowhere to be seen last weekend.

 

[spiriticon]

So the first 14 PL games don't count, but Zirkzee, who cost half the price, is only 9 games in and gets slated every game?

Both Zirkzee and Hojlund are shite.

There, I said it.

 

[saik]

Not his fault we couldn't score in the first half as none of the chances fell to him. But the criticism from me is he goes missing way too often.

I barely noticed him in the 2nd half to the point that I forgot he was still on the pitch at the end. It's the same as last season. The team/ himself needs to involve him more so that he can be on the end of more chances. Decent performance against Brentford but back to being the same inconsistent shit again.

 

[quadrant]

Guy’s 21. At this age he should be a squad member, getting substitution and rotation minutes behind a couple of reliable strikers in their mid 20s, letting him develop at his own pace.

The fact isn’t able to carry the entire club on his back is not his fault. And anyone blaming him for not being able to do that needs to get a little perspective.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

Not his fault we couldn't score in the first half as none of the chances fell to him. But the criticism from me is he goes missing way too often.

I barely noticed him in the 2nd half to the point that I forgot he was still on the pitch at the end. It's the same as last season. The team/ himself needs to involve him more so that he can be on the end of more chances. Decent performance against Brentford but back to being the same inconsistent shit again.

I agree, I think one of the issues that allows Hojlund to avoid more criticism than Zirkzee is that he goes missing in games, whereas Zirkzee gets more involved and makes mistakes, but he hasn't hidden so far. Ultimately neither of them are good enough right now. Hojlund should be a rotational striker behind an experienced 28-30 year old. Zirkzee was a strange signing in that respect, United needed a more guaranteed scorer.

 

[Litch]

Not ready to lead the line and should be an understudy for a more experienced striker

 

[G-manc]

His inability to find a team mate with the simplest of passes once he’s done the hard part of holding the ball up is staggering.

 

[Shark]

His inability to find a team mate with the simplest of passes once he’s done the hard part of holding the ball up is staggering.

Something he can easily improve upon though. The fact he's doing the harder parts, better is actually positive.

 

[Andycoleno9]

For a big guy (who is a striker too), his heading is pretty bad. That cross when he missed the ball completely should have been a goal.

 

[AarhusUnited]

To defend him for todays gams is as embarrassing as defending ETH.. he was shit today, but maybe he will come good some day

 

[CannibalSpectre]

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 often doesn’t do much with the ball in possession and his positioning and presence in the box needs real work. These issues have little if anything to do with greedy wingers

 

[Lyng]

To defend him for todays gams is as embarrassing as defending ETH.. he was shit today, but maybe he will come good some day

Obviously not a peep from you after the Fenerbache match.

 

[RuudTom83]

No striker would flourish with United’s wingers…it’s impossible to ever make a run because you never know when/if they are going to make a cross/pass into the box.

Tough job playing up top for United.

 

[AnotherLondonManc]

Both Zirkzee and Hojlund are shite.

There, I said it.

Wow, such courage! The bravery it takes to make such baseless claims.

I could never...

 

[spiriticon]

Wow, such courage! The bravery it takes to make such baseless claims.

I could never...

I'm tired of mollycoddling shite players in this team.

For Rasmus, shite is the norm, despite a good 10 game run in the middle of last season.

Maybe one day he won't be shite, but right now he really is.

 

[AndySmith1990]

He's a striker befitting of our current standing in football; midtable, mediocre, uninspiring

 

[Shane88]

There was a throw in that went to him just before half time. A soft, delicate ball into him and he still cocked up controlling it.

His level of basic footballing skill is so shite.

 

[Devil81]

Invisible in a game where we created more chances than we have all season. West Ham were sitting ducks, where was our 70 million pound striker.

I'm sick of the he doesn't get supply brigade as well, sometimes a footballer needs to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and just have a go. I see nothing in to suggest he will ever be a top striker.

 

[Grand Vizier]

Invisible in a game where we created more chances than we have all season. West Ham were sitting ducks, where was our 70 million pound striker.

I'm sick of the he doesn't get supply brigade as well, sometimes a footballer needs to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and just have a go. I see nothing in to suggest he will ever be a top striker.

He held the ball well and brought others into play. It is not his fault that Garnacho chooses to shoot himself instead of giving it back. It is also not his fault that Garnacho, Dalot and Bruno misses big chances. You're sick of the "he doesn't get supply"-brigade. Well, where is the supply? I saw Garnacho try to get the ball to Højlund in the box once in this match, where he made an excellent dribble and nearly got a shot off, but their keeper was too quick out.

Some of you are just saying random shit because he didn't score a goal. Next game, he'll score and you will be praising him. This forum is so nuts at times. Same posters changing opinions on players after each game, depending on their performance.

 

[thisisnottaken1]

I’m fed up of people shitting on him. He’s way better than many people think he is. He receives the worst service in the world. fecking Ronaldo Nazário would look shit if he had Rashford and Garnacho flanking him.

 

[Vault Dweller]

He barely gets any chances and needs to create for himself so many times. Obviously some of that falls on him but so many times watching us he is in position and selfish play from a few guys in particular just don’t look for him. I feel for him.

 

[Ballache]

Yeah I'm not judging a guy that gets less than one chance a game.
We can have prime Lewandowski and he'd struggle for goals.

 

[ShinjiNinja26]

He’s been feeding off of scraps since he joined the club. He’s shown he can finish from the very limited chances he does get, once we find a way to create more for him consistently he’ll score bags of goals.

 

[Tosicsleftpeg]

Anyone notice that as soon as we were desperate at the end and started crossing it in then Zirkzee was getting on the end of things? Well if they did that earlier in the game Rasmus would entirely get some chances.

He gets absolutely nothing, everything is directed to the 2 wingers running into the half space towards goal. The wingers also never play the ball through after cutting in either, how is the bloke supposed to score?

 

[ROFLUTION]

Invisible in a game where we created more chances than we have all season. West Ham were sitting ducks, where was our 70 million pound striker.

I'm sick of the he doesn't get supply brigade as well, sometimes a footballer needs to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and just have a go. I see nothing in to suggest he will ever be a top striker.

Didnt he kind of do that at times last year? Go solo and score? Do you expect him to just drop deep, get the ball, dribble past 3-4 men and score? That’s basically what you’re suggesting.

 

[Schneiderlin's List]

I really dislike him not because he doesn't get chances but because he is an absolute ghost on the pitch for 90 mins. How can Bruno find Garnacho & Rashford beating the offside trap so many times but hojlund hardly does it a single game? set pieces? Where was he all that time crossing the ball to zirkzee? That cross from the left he was ball watching?

His finishing has never been elite even in Austrian or Danish leagues for him to build a whole team around his finishing.

He always looks like an average player unable to get his grip on the match who can sometimes score a goal which makes his actual performance seem better than it is.

Either you want

A) Hojlund to be the core of your attack and let Garnacho, Amad & Rashford suffer for Hojlunds average abilities to receive the ball and bring others in to play

Or

B) you let Hojlund suffer by letting Garnacho, Amad & Rashford play like Inverted Forwards that don't need to rely on Hojlund both as the primary goalscorer or the creator if their chances.

I'm personally on the B side, there's more quality and quality on that proposal.

Seems like a nice guy, but you can see when a player has "it" & personally I will be surprised if this guy proves me wrong.

His shots to goal ratio is only good because he takes so few. We played with Cavani, Zlatan, Ronaldo & Lukaku before with similair wingers.

 

[Schmeichels pinky]

I really dislike him not because he doesn't get chances but because he is an absolute ghost on the pitch for 90 mins.

His finishing has never been elite even in Austrian or Danish leagues for him to build a whole team around his finishing.

He always looks like an average player unable to get his grip on the match who can sometimes score a goal which makes his actual performance seem better than it is.

Either you want

A) Hojlund to be the core of your attack and let Garnacho, Amad & Rashford suffer for Hojlunds average abilities to receive the ball and bring others in to play

Or

B) you let Hojlund suffer by letting Garnacho, Amad & Rashford play like Inverted Forwards that don't need to rely on Hojlund both as the primary goalscorer or the creator if their chances.

I'm personally on the B side, there's more quality and quality on that proposal.

Seems like a nice guy, but you can see when a player has "it" & personally I will be surprised if this guy proves me wrong.

As long as you don’t even define “it” I can’t take your post seriously.
But it is a great case to illustrate many of the issues with posts in here in general, so a couple of points:

1. The bolded paragraph is a lie. One of his indisputable qualities is his finishing as you would know if you look at the chances he gets, how he finishes with both feet and varied shots, and his conversion rate. Also, why do you think he was catapulted from the Danish league through Austria to Atalanta in a year?

2. He is obviously asked to draw the CB’s attention to make room for others, primarily our wingers and Bruno. He does that very well and it worked yesterday - we had enough chances to score at least 3, but Garnacho didn’t deliver (and that miss from Dalot ).

3. His passing is severely underrated, because they rarely lead to goals. But he usually makes at least one or two that should result in assists - the one yesterday for Amad was beautiful.

In general it seems many of you only come in here to slag him off after games where he didn’t score. And you don’t even bother to come up with valid arguments. It’s just “he’s shite”, “he’s not good enough”, “I feel he won’t make it” or other redundant statements.

 

[Lyng]

I really dislike him not because he doesn't get chances but because he is an absolute ghost on the pitch for 90 mins.

His finishing has never been elite even in Austrian or Danish leagues for him to build a whole team around his finishing.

He always looks like an average player unable to get his grip on the match who can sometimes score a goal which makes his actual performance seem better than it is.

Either you want

A) Hojlund to be the core of your attack and let Garnacho, Amad & Rashford suffer for Hojlunds average abilities to receive the ball and bring others in to play

Or

B) you let Hojlund suffer by letting Garnacho, Amad & Rashford play like Inverted Forwards that don't need to rely on Hojlund both as the primary goalscorer or the creator if their chances.

I'm personally on the B side, there's more quality and quality on that proposal.

Seems like a nice guy, but you can see when a player has "it" & personally I will be surprised if this guy proves me wrong.

Højlunds finishing is his strongest point. He is quite clinical when given a chance. Relying on Garnacho to score your goals means we get one goal out of about 10 chances.

 

[FrankDrebin]

I find his movement in and outside the box to be highly questionable and his link up play and ball control is mediocre at best.
So sure you could argue that a 'prime Ronaldo/Lewa' may struggle to score consistent goals for us, which I think is debatable personally because they'll put the fear of God into the oppositions mind, but these two ridiculous examples were genuine world class all round fowards/players. They could achieve the basics of being a forward with their eyes closed.

Also, cast you mind back to Martials debut season. We were arguably worst going forward then than we are now but his ability dragged us through games. Hojlund doesn't have that ability.

So, sure, Hojlund may have it a little tough at times but he's still a all round mediocre player atm.

 

[Mike Smalling]

It's a combination of Højlund not being a particularly great player, and the overall attacking play being quite poor. Rashford is way too inconsistent and Garnacho is way too selfish. Højulnd is unfortunately not the type to really create for himself, beyond maybe a simple dummy before taking a shot.

I really don't think we have anyone else to put up top that would perform better. Zirkzee has been dreadful recently and it's not Rashford's strength. It's up to ETH to improve the overall attacking play, and he is failing dreadfully at that.

 

[FrankDrebin]

Our lack of functionality in attack has been pants ever since ETH has came in.

 

[Lyng]

Our lack of functionality in attack has been pants ever since ETH has came in.

And this is exactly why I hesitate to throw to much at our players these days. I want to see them under a proper coach

 

[Oldyella]

Yeah I'm not judging a guy that gets less than one chance a game.
We can have prime Lewandowski and he'd struggle for goals.

Exactly this. Unless we sign a forwards who can do it all himself, he's not going to get goals, as we simply don't even attempt to build goal patterns

So long as a player is putting in effort, they are all getting a pass from me right now, the football is garbage and ETH is dragging them all down.

 

[Schmeichels pinky]

I find his movement in and outside the box to be highly questionable and his link up play and ball control is mediocre at best

And yet he was praised for exactly that after the Brentford game. He created both space and chances for others yesterday,, not his fault Garnacho, Dalot and Amad can’t score.

 

[Schmeichels pinky]

It's a combination of Højlund not being a particularly great player, and the overall attacking play being quite poor. Rashford is way too inconsistent and Garnacho is way too selfish. Højulnd is unfortunately not the type to really create for himself, beyond maybe a simple dummy before taking a shot.

I really don't think we have anyone else to put up top that would perform better. Zirkzee has been dreadful recently and it's not Rashford's strength. It's up to ETH to improve the overall attacking play, and he is failing dreadfully at that.

Come on, man. He’s no Messi, but he’s shown that he does way more than you give him credit for. He can turn on players and outrun them with the ball, he creates both space and chances for others and he has a wide variety of finishes in his locker. He is clearly asked to keep the cb’s busy so our wingers have space to run into and shoot or pass to Bruno, Dalot or someone else running into the box from deep - all the while Hojlund has no chance of getting at the end of it himself because he has been busy drawing the defenders away. As it is his instructions are to be primarily a hold up player who creates chances for others and contribute defensively on set pieces as well which hampers his play as a striker.

 

[Bondi77]

For a big guy (who is a striker too), his heading is pretty bad. That cross when he missed the ball completely should have been a goal.

Not many good headers in the game today and I would be interested to see how much training goes into that for our strikers.
Last good ones I can remember are Ronnie and Tim Cahill.