It has been a long wait for Rasmus Hojjund’s first Premier League – made longer following Manchester United’s 2-0 Premier League defeat to West Ham on Saturday.
These days it feels like United go into every game with so much up for grabs because we have yet been able to go on a winning run this season. Unfortunately, easy wins and goals galore are only a Christmas wish this year.
But there was no denying the importance of a win yesterday for United against their old boss David Moyes. Instead, we collapsed to our 13th defeat of the season, which leaves us in eight in the Premier League.
As per usual, we are having to focus on United’s lack of goals which will bring new centre-forward Rasmus Hojlund into the equation. The 20-year-old has yet to open his account in the Premier League.
Meanwhile, Saturday’s goalscorer Jarrod Bowen has more goals in the Premier League this season than the entire Manchester United starting XI which is an embarrassing statistic.
Hojjlund also picked up the lowest WhoScored rating (6.21) on the pitch and it wasn’t the only game this season that it looked like the Denmark international was starved of service from his team-mates. It’s no secret that is not being helped by those around him.
Antony and Alejandro Garnacho, who started on the wings for United, combined for a total of just one pass to Hojlund over the course of the match.
One winger keen to involve the striker when he plays is Facundo Pellistri, but the Uruguayan doesn’t feature as much as Garnacho, Antony or even Marcus Rashford. At least he likes to cross the ball into the box.
Instead, Hojlund is being asked to drop deep and play to his weaknesses. Or is there anything weaker than a striker with no service?
It is something Ten Hag must address in the coming weeks because it wasn’t as big of a problem in Europe as Hojlund notched five goals in the Champions League group stages.
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