Manchester United will host Newcastle United on Wednesday night in what is set to be their final home game of the campaign.
If results go as expected, then this will be Manchester United’s worst-ever Premier League campaign and one many want to forget quickly.
The under-fire Erik ten Hag, who won the League Cup in his debut campaign and secured Champions League football, could finish eighth this time around.
There is the small matter of an all-Manchester derby in the FA Cup final, for the second season running and that might just change the mood entirely if they win at Wembley.
For that to happen, Manchester United will need some currently injured players, such as captain Bruno Fernandes, back on the field.
You could probably add Marcus Rashford to that, even though he has struggled big time this season and many are even questioning if he should be part of England’s squad for Euro 2024.
One man who probably needs those two on the field is striker Rasmus Hojlund because the stats suggest he scores all his goals when Rashford is on the left, Fernandes is the number 10 and Alejandro Garnacho is on the right.
Peter Schmeichel has defended Hojlund’s debut campaign at Old Trafford and how he has been ‘let down by the team’, as he told Premier League Productions (12/05/24 at 4:15 pm).
The legendary goalkeeper added that he sympathised with the 21-year-old because his teammates simply don’t pass him the ball or provide him with enough service.
Rasmus Hojlund and his Manchester United teammates
“I feel he has been let down by the team, not individually by the team, but more than anything, by the way the team is playing,” said Schmeichel.
“If you bring a number 9 in. Use him and pass the ball to him. What we see here (past clips) of Garnacho and Rashford coming in from the flanks trying to finish themselves (rather than cross the ball). He is always in a good position. He is always thinking about other players as well. But they aren’t!
“It’s an easy top-in if you just roll it across the goal to Hojlund. We have Wan-Bissaka getting the ball here, instead of playing it to Garnacho, it’s a perfect angle to just roll it into his left foot, which is his strongest foot and then he gets impatient because he’s not getting the ball in those positions. In order to get into the game, he is then coming deep. I have a lot of sympathy for this lad. He burst onto the scene. He wasn’t in the Danish World Cup squad. I didn’t know too much about him. He was picked for the next squad. My son said ‘I really hope he is picking him because there is something about him’. He was picked, started the game and scored a hat-trick. All of a sudden, you are looking at this kid and thinking ‘woah, he has got something’.
Rasmus Hojlund’s numbers
Given the little service to the player, his numbers in his debut campaign in English football are encouraging.
Hojlund has eight Premier League goals to his name, including scoring in six Premier League games in a row.
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He was unfortunate that when he was on that goalscoring spree he proceeded to get injured and halt his progress.
What also needs to be remembered is that the Denmark international also scored five goals in the Champions League as Manchester United were booted out of the group stages.
The post ‘I have a lot of sympathy’: Peter Schmeichel says Manchester United star ‘let down by the team’ appeared first on HITC.
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