Rasmus Hojlund: Manchester United “got” the trick of the century?

Rasmus Hojlund played much worse than expected. The Danish striker’s statistics are very bad compared to the average in the Premier League. This is truly a failed contract for Man Utd.

In the summer of 2023, Man Utd spent up to 72 million pounds to recruit Rasmus Hojlund from Atalanta. However, the Danish striker’s performance was extremely poor. After 8 matches in the Premier League, Hojlund has not scored a goal.

Not only that, statistics show that Hojlund is much weaker than the average striker playing in the Premier League. Specifically, players born in 2003 only have an average of 1.7 shots per 90 minutes in England’s highest tournament.

With this poor finishing performance, Hojlund only ranks 100th among players playing in the Premier League (only counting players who play at least 180 minutes).

Notably, the leader is Darwin Nunez (Liverpool) with 5.7 shots per match. Meanwhile, Rashford ranks 12th with 3.6 shots per match, and Bruno Fernandes ranks 36th with 2.9 shots per match.

That shows that Hojlund’s position selection and handling ability are really problematic. It’s understandable for the Danish striker as he just joined Man Utd and hasn’t gotten used to the new style of play.

However, what makes people worried is that Hojlund does not know how to take advantage of the few opportunities. Even the 2003-born striker’s ability to create is very poor. He hasn’t had any successful passes yet.

Hojlund only recovered when he scored 3 goals in the Champions League. However, this player’s performance is not commensurate with the £72 million spent by Man Utd. Courage in front of the wooden goal is identified as Hojlund’s weakness.

It should be added that in his career, Hojlund has never scored more than 9 goals in the national championship (10 goals in all competitions). Even last season, Hojlund only scored 9 goals for Atalanta in Serie A, before being sold to Man Utd for a terribly high price.