Rasmus H\u00f8jlund has repeatedly been his own toughest critic, but he has also accepted the burden that comes with rapid advancement and high expectation. He moved from FC Copenhagen\u2019s academy into senior football, spent six months skirting the first team before a spell at Sturm Graz, and after one season in Serie A with Atalanta he signed for Manchester United in 2023 at the age of 20.<\/p>\n
He called the leap from reserve to United\u2019s starting striker \u201ca little bit surrealistic\u201d at the time and now stands by the decision to make that jump. \u201cYou could argue I probably needed a year or whatever, but I feel like it was the right step for me,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd like I said, I think I did well in my first year, especially, where I became top scorer and in the team and had a good campaign in the Champions League and so on, and won a trophy with the guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
His debut Premier League season featured a slow start, with his first top-flight goal arriving on Boxing Day, but it was offset by a strong Champions League group stage in 2023\u201324 when he scored five times in six games. He also came off the bench in the second half of the 2024 FA Cup final, which United won against Manchester City.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pressure is big and and you learn from that,\u201d H\u00f8jlund sagely reflects. \u201cYou take that, you put that in your bag. And you just learn from it, get more used to it and grow with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statistic (All Comps)
\nH\u00f8jlund Value
\nSquad Rank
\nAppearances 43 =5th
\nStarts 35 =5th
\nGoals 16 1st
\nTotal Shots 57 6th
\nAssists 2 =9th
\nStats via FBref.<\/p>\n
Now with Napoli, who would be obliged to trigger a buy clause worth around \u00a338 million should they qualify for the Champions League this season, H\u00f8jlund stresses his commitment while remaining technically a Manchester United player. \u201cAll of them are more or less my friends,\u201d he says. \u201cSo obviously I\u2019m still watching them and wishing them good luck every time they play.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has already bettered his final Premier League campaign goal tally and is central to Napoli\u2019s defence of their Serie A title. Under Antonio Conte he continues to push himself. \u201cI think proving it for yourself it\u2019s the most important one,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause if you prove it to yourself, I think you prove it to the rest of the world as well, because I got very high expectations for myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to put the bar high, because then you push yourself as much as possible. Whereas if you reach a goal, like, let\u2019s just say early in the season … then you would probably automatically lean back. Whereas if you focus in on I\u2019m not saying the impossible but like try to hit, almost impossible…\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hojlund defends his Manchester United record and reflects on pressure, progress and goals. In Napoli<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1028,1125],"tags":[1208,1047,1360],"class_list":["post-5531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-napoli","category-strikers","tag-boxing-day","tag-champions-league","tag-hojlund"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5531","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=5531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}