Manchester United bought Hojlund at the beginning of the season, which is a transfer that can make Ten Hag's supporters and opponents stunned: In the eyes of supporters, Rashford once played a phenomenal performance in the center forward position last season, and now that Hojlund is winning, Rashford will return to the left winger position, and Manchester United's tactics of possession on both wings are still not playable?
In the eyes of opponents, everyone criticized Ten Hag for buying people on the same grounds that Ten Hag was nepotistic. This time, Ten Hag is not staring at Ajax's people, but for a player who only has a one-year experience in the top five leagues, he paid a fixed transfer fee of 75 million euros.
Judging from the performance of the Premier League, Hojlund's performance may not really be worthy of his transfer fee: in the first 14 rounds of the Premier League, Hojlund was successfully assimilated by Manchester United's forward teammates, and did not score a goal in 14 games.
When it comes to the reasons, we can help him find many reasons, such as his back injury has given him a lot less time to run-in, for example, he has only played in Serie A for a year, and it will definitely be more difficult to adapt when he first arrives in the Premier League, after all, he himself said in an interview that the rhythm and confrontation of the Premier League are a notch higher than that of Serie A, and of course he is not easy to adapt to......
Perhaps because of his multi-tiered journey (from Copenhagen to Graz Storm to Atalanta), Hojlund looks a little more comfortable with the Champions League. After five rounds of the Champions League group stage, Hojlund once led the Champions League group stage scorer list with 5 goals, against his old club Copenhagen, he faced his old club's slippery kneeling celebration once let himself fall into the ** whirlpool, but he didn't care.
His mental qualities are indeed strong. In the first 19 rounds of the Premier League, Hojlund shot a total of 19 times, leaving all the best power to his teammates behind him, and he had to fight hand-to-hand with the opponent in the penalty area, receive the ball with his back in the penalty area, leave all the physical strength used for counterattacking to the high press, and then watch his teammates squander the opportunity.
But since the reversal of Aston Villa, Hojlund has finally had his moment. Against Villa, Hojlund's only shot of the game allowed him to open his goal account, and then against Tottenham, Hojlund scored with another shot, and by the way, he sent an assist, against Wolves with two shots and also completed a pass, against West Ham United, Hojlund had two shots in exchange for a goal, relying on a very high shot conversion rate to change his fate.
With five goals and two assists in the last six games, Ten Hag naturally sees such a performance: "It's not easy for a first-year Premier League freshman to adapt to everything, but he keeps himself under pressure. Staying angry is a personality that every striker needs to have. When he doesn't score, he gets angry, he gets angry, but that's why we chose him, he's resilient and calm and can respond under pressure. ”
For Hojlund, the Dane has a lot more to do: his chemistry with Marcus Rashford is just being established, but he is still in the field match with the others. He's good on the ball, but he still needs to improve his attacking options in the pack.
Of course, for a young man who is new to the Premier League, every minute counts, and scoring on his 21st birthday night makes him only the second player to score in the league on his 21st birthday, and is the start of a wonderful story.
The original address of this article **Commentator Lao Miao.