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Rasmus Hojlund, in a recent interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, spoke about several topics, including his spell at Manchester United.

When asked why things did not work out at Old Trafford, Hojlund pointed to the change that followed Erik ten Hag’s departure, with Ruben Amorim coming in as manager.

“I don’t think anything specific went wrong. I joined a club with one manager: it was a difficult year, with many injuries, but we won the FA Cup and I was the top scorer. Then we went through a difficult period and Amorim arrived, an excellent coach but with a different style of play. The team had to adapt, and it was complicated. We all struggled. My first year was a success, the second was not. But I played in the Europa League final; if we had won, it would have been a different story. That’s football: sometimes things go well, other times they go badly, but I’m very happy to have played for the club I dreamed of as a child.”

The young Denmark striker joined Manchester United before the 2023/24 season from Atalanta in a deal worth €79.8 million. In his first season, he made 43 appearances in all competitions, scoring 16 goals and providing two assists. In his second season, he managed only ten goals and four assists in 52 appearances. That was followed by a season-long loan move to Napoli, which was made permanent this summer for €44 million.

The transfer fee certainly did not make life easier for Hojlund. Clubs often pay inflated amounts to sign players, and Manchester United have been especially prone to doing that. Those fees inevitably shape the way a player’s time at a club is judged, even though the player usually has little or no say in the amount agreed between the two clubs during negotiations.

Hojlund’s numbers in his first season at Manchester United were comparable to what he produced in his only season at Atalanta, and those figures were also broadly in line with what he had delivered in the years before his move to Bergamo. His second-season output dipped for reasons he has himself acknowledged, although the decline was not dramatic.

Now that he is at Napoli, and having already posted similar numbers in his first season there, he will hope to remain in one place long enough to build on that base level and establish himself as a striker who can be trusted to deliver 20–30 goals a season.