Manchester United have completed the long awaited deal – Rasmus Hojlund is their new striker after signing for the Red Devils from Atalanta. It turned out this was indeed a deal in which United had to pay a premium and even overpay in order to get a green light from the Serie A outfit. Man United will pay 72 million pounds for the 20-year-old Denmark international. He signed a five-year-deal, until the summer of 2028, and he is United’s third signing this summer. Previously, the Devils spent some 55 million pounds on Mason Mount and around 47 million pounds for Andre Onana. This means Erik Ten Hag got some serious financial investments from the board this summer, with the total spend amounting to 174 million pounds on three players.
We already wrote extensively about who is Rasmus Hojlund, what is his style of play and what could Man United fans expect to see from the youngster. But it is also incredible just how fast the Dane came in his career and how his rise was unlike anything anyone could have predicted even less than two years ago.
Hojlund started his youth career at Brondby where he joined in 2016, before moving to the more prestigious academy of FC Copenhagen. There, he was moved to the first team in the summer of 2021 where he managed to play 32 matches before his first move. In 32 matches for Copenhagen, he scored five goals and was sold to Austrian side Sturm from Graz, in a deal worth around 2 million euros. That was in January 2022, but by the end of August of the same year, he signed for Atalanta in a transfer worth 20 million euros.
So how Sturm managed to flip their investment and earn 10 times more than they paid, just seven months later? Atalanta’s extensive scouting department managed to find him in Austria after he scored 12 goals and added four assists in mere 21 appearances for the club. Three weeks later, he made his Denmark debut against Croatia in UEFA Nations League. While his goalscoring tally for Atalanta was not as mouthwatering, he scored six goals in his last four games for Denmark, all of them in EURO 2024 qualifiers.
But at Atalanta, Hojlund joined a much stronger league than the Austrian one, and a much trickier one for young strikers. He struggled in the first half of the season, scoring just one goal, against Monza, before the end of 2022. Then with the turn of the year, something clicked. First he scored in three consecutive matches, against Spezia, Bologna and Salernitana, and in the latter match he also had an assist. Later on came goals agianst Lazio, Lecce, Empoli, Verona and Monza, meaning he ended the campaign with 10 goals, to which he also added four assists.
It is clear that Rasmus Hojlund is not the goalscoring striker in the manner United fans would want him to be. Or, he is just not that striker yet. But as always in deals similar to this one, United have signed him on the basis of his potential, not the exact quality he had shown in Serie A. That brings plenty of risks with itself, but it seems Erik Ten Hag is quite confident that he could continue Rasmus Hojlund’s incredible rise even further.