The £72m signing netted 10 Premier League goals in his maiden campaign (Picture: Getty)
Rasmus Hojlund has rubbished a report saying his Manchester United team-mates are ‘unconvinced’ by his ability and ‘reluctant’ to pass to him, describing it as ‘nonsense’.
The Red Devils spent £72million to prise Hojlund away from Atalanta last summer, though he had to wait until Boxing Day to open his Premier League account.
He went on to score six more times in his next five outings but hit another barren patch from the end of February onwards, only scoring once more before the final week of the season – when he bagged in back-to-back games against Newcastle and Brighton.
A report in the Manchester Evening News earlier this month claimed Hojlund’s team-mates still did not have full confidence in the 21-year-old and were ‘seeking alternative options in the final third’ rather than passing to him.
But Hojlund has shot down the report and feels he gets good service from his team-mates, while he says he has finally found his rhythm in the Premier League after a difficult first few months in England.
Asked directly about the article, Hojlund told Danish Publication Tipsbladet last week: ‘I do not understand such an article.
‘I feel like I get the ball if I’m in the right positions. I would have liked to get the ball a bit more sometimes, but that’s just not always possible.
‘This is, again, an example of something I have to shut out because it’s just a lot of noise.’
Hojlund has had a testing, but promising, first season at United (Picture: Getty)
He added: ‘You have to filter out the stories because 90-95 per cent of them are nonsense. I had to learn to sort through them, because there’s not much else I can do other than put them on ice.’
On how his first season at United has gone, he continued: ‘It took me some time to get started in the Premier League, but I think I have come on really well since then. I feel I have found my rhythm.
‘It was frustrating leading up to my first goal in the Premier League because I felt there was a lot of focus on it and more energy could have been spent on the fact that I was top scorer in the Champions League [at the time].
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‘But, of course, I agree it is not very impressive to go 14 Premier League games without scoring your first goal, but I felt I had some bad luck in the league games. Fortunately, it got better.
‘When I scored against Aston Villa, I felt like the curse had been lifted a bit. It was a good day because I scored my first goal and we beat a really good team.’
On Denmark’s upcoming Euros campaign, Hojlund added: ‘It’s going to be insanely cool.
‘I was close to making it last time [for the World Cup in Qatar] but I stumbled right at the finish line. I’m really looking forward to it – now we’ll first have to see if I get selected.’
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