Erik ten Hag is very worried that the Dane hasn’t been able to repeat his great play in the Champions League at home.

Rasmus Hojlund was signed by Manchester United in the summer, but they knew they were getting a player with promise rather than proven quality. Even so, they would have expected their £72 million ($90 million) striker to have scored at least a few Premier League goals by now, four months after he arrived.

The Danish hitman has played 14 times in the Premier League, but he has yet to score his first goal in the famous red shirt. It got even worse for him after a terrible game against West Ham. He now has an even worse record for United in the English Premier League than Wout Weghorst, who was made fun of during his poor loan spell with the club last season.

Hojlund has had a strange start to his time with United since moving there for a lot of money from Atalanta. He had been scoring five goals in his first four Champions League games, which tied him with Erling Haaland and Alvaro Morata for the most goals scored.

Luckily for United, none of those goals earned them any points because their defense was so bad. Hojlund also failed to score against Galatasaray and Bayern Munich, and the Red Devils finished last in Group A, making their return to the Champions League a total disaster.

United only has the Premier League and FA Cup to play for left, so Hojlund needs to quickly learn how to play English football and find a new way to score goals to help United recover something from this terrible season…

In 945 minutes, one goal was called back.

After hurting his back over the summer, Hojlund had to wait almost a month to make his United debut. However, his first game off the bench against Arsenal gave fans a lot of reason to be hopeful.

With his lightning-fast speed and smart runs, he put a lot of pressure on the Arsenal defense in just 23 minutes. He almost won a penalty and helped Alejandro Garnacho score a goal that VAR called just barely offside.

Marcus Rashford passed the ball to him close to the goal in his first game for United against Brighton, and he thought he had scored. However, the goal was ruled out because Rashford had pulled the ball out of play. Manchester United lost the game 3-1, but it looked like Hojlund was about to start hitting goals all the time.

It’s strange that hasn’t happened in the Premier League. Even though he has played 945 minutes and started 11 games, Hojlund has only scored one goal, which was called off against Brighton. He has also not set up any other goals.

A very low shot rate

Hojlund is worried about more than just the lack of goals. He’s only getting brief looks of what’s going on in the penalty area. The striker has taken an average of 1.3 shots per game in the Premier League. In the Champions League and while qualifying for the European Championship with Denmark, he took an average of 1.8 shots per game.

And his stats from his last five games across all categories are especially bad to read. He has only had three shots against Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Bournemouth, Newcastle, and Galatasaray, and only one of them went in.

During the 1-0 loss to Bayern, he barely played. He didn’t take a shot, touched the ball 18 times (half as many times as custodian Andre Onana), and made only nine crosses.

At this point, the fact that he was only 20 years old and had only played in Europe’s top five leagues for one and a half seasons became clear. The Bayern defender who was supposed to mark him, Kim Min-Jae, constantly pushed him off the ball, and he lost six of the eight duels he was in.

His teammates aren’t making the most of him.

Some of Hojllund’s teammates are still getting to know him, and it sometimes feels like his runs aren’t being seen or are being ignored.

In the first half against Bayern, Alejandro Garnacho got a break and went on his own. He could see Hojlund to his right, but he chose to go it alone anyway, and Manuel Neuer wasn’t tested. Hojlund looked angry, but he wasn’t really in the best place to get the ball and make things dangerous.

But there were many other times when he was right to tell his teammates that he wasn’t getting the ball. Last weekend’s 3-0 loss at home to Bournemouth was a good example. Diogo Dalot ran down the right wing and shot into the side netting from a tight angle, even though Hojlund begged him to cut the ball back.

Match of the Day commentator Ian Wright said, “I think that’s a complete lack of respect for him [Hojlund]. He doesn’t even acknowledge him.” “He took a shot from the silliest way possible. He feels bad about himself, but he doesn’t even try to find Hojlund. He must be being pulled up by Hojlund in the locker room and told to “come on.”

He told Dalot what was going on because he wasn’t passing the ball to him, and Antony was also seen yelling at him for not giving him the ball sooner. Marcus Rashford is the only other forward who seems to be on the same level as him. Rashford has had a terrible season and hasn’t played a game since December 2.

Despite his problems, he had a good attitude.

The good thing about Hojlund is that he isn’t letting the fact that he hasn’t scored any goals in his own country get him down. He is still working hard and sprinting to get to through balls. In that way, he is different from Rashford and Anthony Martial.

He knows that nothing is easy, and he is still a young player getting used to a new league and team. The fans are still very much on his side; they cheer when he comes on as a replacement and boo when he is taken off, especially when Martial comes on.

He said in October, “I know what I’m worth.” “Being a Manchester United player, I know I have to do my best every day.” Last but not least, I’m only 20 years old, so I’m not quite there yet. I still need to work on a lot of things, but I’m slowly getting better.

In the loss to West Ham, Hojlund was taken off after 57 minutes of not taking a shot. Ten Hag said that the striker’s lack of Premier League goals has not made him sad.

“I believe he is a strong person who can handle the stress.” “He was sick during the week, so I took him off. He was a little weak, so in that way I protected him,” the manager said.