Stood in the bowels of Chicago\u2019s Soldier Field, drenched in sweat after scoring two goals in a statement preseason victory over Bournemouth, Rasmus H\u00f8jlund assured journalists passing through the mixed zone that he would be staying at Manchester United that summer \u201cwhatever happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
That assurance and the chain of events that followed are now clearer from H\u00f8jlund\u2019s perspective. He says United made it plain he was not part of the manager\u2019s plans, and that prompted a move away from Old Trafford. \u201cUnited made it quite clear for me that I wasn\u2019t part of the plans for this year coming into the season, and with no European football and that sort of things,\u201d he says, four months into a loan spell at Napoli which contains an conditional obligation to buy should the reigning Serie A title holders qualify for the Champions League next season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m young, I have to play football,\u201d H\u00f8jlund adds, \u201cand for that reason, I think this was also a good opportunity for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the weeks between that preseason promise and his departure, Manchester United completed the signing of Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko from RB Leipzig in a deal which could cost up to \u00a373.7 million, eclipsing the \u00a372 million United paid for H\u00f8jlund two years earlier. H\u00f8jlund was left out of Ruben Amorim\u2019s squad for the first three Premier League games and watched as \u0160e\u0161ko and co. were knocked out of the Carabao Cup second round by Grimsby Town.<\/p>\n
When Napoli expressed interest H\u00f8jlund acted quickly. \u201cNapoli saw an opportunity to go and get me and as soon as I heard the interest from them, I made it quite obvious for my camp and for the people around that I only wanted to to go there.\u201d Negotiations were led by Giovanni Manna, there were conversations with Scott McTominay, and a short exchange with Antonio Conte sealed the move. \u201cIt was a quite short conversation,\u201d he remembers. \u201cBut a very, very good one.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Conte he says, \u201cI think he\u2019s an incredible coach,\u201d and \u201cWhen he calls you, you just have to say yes.\u201d In fewer than 1,000 minutes of Serie A action H\u00f8jlund has already bettered his final Premier League season tally, scoring within 15 minutes of his debut after a switch to a 3-4-3 system.<\/p>\n
On Romelu Lukaku he is effusive. \u201cRom is a fantastic guy,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t really know him from before,\u201d he admits, \u201cI\u2019ve had a couple of chats with him, like on the pitch, and I\u2019ve actually got a Romelu shirt at home. He\u2019s a bit of an idol for me, because I\u2019ve always looked up to him, actually.\u201d With Lukaku returning from a serious hamstring injury, H\u00f8jlund accepts there will be competition: \u201cobviously, I want to play,\u201d he says, and is quick to add, \u201cI want to learn from him as well because I feel like he can give me so much,\u201d and \u201cbecause he\u2019s always been scoring goals, and he\u2019s great at linking the play and these sort of things. I think he has a lot he can give out as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
H\u00f8jlund explains his Manchester United exit, Napoli move, Conte’s influence and Lukaku’s role. Today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,1028,1163],"tags":[1021,1304,317],"class_list":["post-5529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-napoli","category-transfers","tag-amorim","tag-benching","tag-benjamin-sesko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}