What was responsible for Rasmus Højlund’s lack of league goals?
Many fans have offered their takes on why they think Højlund has struggled for goals in the league so far. Some think Manchester United’s new signing Rasmus Højlund is a victim of a dysfunctional tactical structure, but could the Danish forward be as much a contributor to his woes as his environment?
Manchester United finished the 2022/23 season with Marcus Rashford topping the scoring charts and Wout Weghorst as the only center forward on the roster. Everyone in the football community agreed with the Red Devils hierarchy that a center forward was needed. The “who” is what caused some debate.
Unsurprisingly, many fans favored Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane, but even they knew that securing the signature of the second-highest Premier League all-time top scorer was a tall order. The Manchester club eventually settled on spending £63 million on then Atalanta’s center forward Rasmus Højlund.
Højlund ended up scoring his first league goal in December 2023, and as of February 2, 2024, the Denmark striker has three league goals to his name. This shows that the big man has struggled for goals in the league at Manchester United, but what is responsible for the struggle?
His scoring woes are made more perplexing considering that he has one of Europe’s best and most creative players playing behind him every week. This has caused some fans to even doubt the creative prowess of the player in question: Bruno Fernandes. It is indeed difficult for most fans to understand why the presence of a creative player of Fernandes’s level has not automatically meant a smooth ride for Højlund so far.
To understand Højlund’s scoring problems we would need to be clear about what makes a striker successful. Two things determine the success of a striker: the number of chances he can get i.e. shots, and his finishing ability. This means that for a striker to be successful — anywhere — he has to be able to get 1) chances in general and 2) very good chances. The other thing a striker needs is to be able to finish chances at a good enough rate.
Some strikers are exceptional at getting the shooting chances but not too great at finishing, others are exceptional at finishing, but not so great at getting chances. The hallmark of a top striker though, is being exceptional at getting shooting chances, because it means you don’t have to be exceptional at finishing (which is very difficult to do) to score a lot of goals.
Shooting, for strikers, goes beyond just lacing it. When evaluating strikers, you need to check not just how many shots they’re taking, but WHERE they’re taking those shots from. This is why Manchester City’s Erling Haaland is by far the best striker currently playing the sport because he takes so many shots from very good positions.
To put Haaland’s shooting in context, a big chance is defined as a shot that has an expected goal (xG) value of 0.25 or higher. Kane took 130 shots in the league last season and averaged 0.17 xG per shot and 0.13 xG per non-penalty shot. Haaland took 123 shots and averaged 0.23 xG per shot and 0.20 xG per non-penalty shot. Haaland was shooting the near equivalent of a big chance every time he shot a ball. Do you know how impressive that is?!
The quality of Haaland’s and Kane’s shots was superb. They didn’t just take good shots, they took lots of them too. Haaland averaged 3.5 shots per game and Kane averaged 3.4. The quality of shots a striker takes is dependent on where he takes them from, and where he takes them from will depend on where he can move to i.e. player movement. A striker’s movement is key if he wants to get the kind of chances Kane and Haaland regularly get.
You may think it’s dependent on the prowess of the creators behind them, but Kane did not have a top-quality creator behind him at Spurs last season. In fact, Kane was the top creator on his team last season, and it reflects in his shot profile. This is to say that while Kane’s shot quality was not up to Haaland’s, it was still very good.
Back to Man United’s spanking new signing, the good news is that Højlund comfortably ticks the shot quality aspect for strikers. More than comfortably in fact, as he has averaged 0.22 xG per shot and 0.18 xG per shot in his last Atalanta season and his current Manchester United season respectively, according to Sofascore.
The issue is that the Denmark forward is not taking nearly enough of these shots for a center forward on a team like Manchester United. It’s not impossible to make the case that Højlund’s lack of shots is due to Manchester United’s general lack of shots, but it’s a difficult case to make, and I’ll tell you why. Walk with me.
According to FBRef, Chelsea is averaging 12.8 shots per game. Manchester United is averaging higher (14.1), but there’s more. Chelsea’s main striker Nicolas Jackson, has averaged 2.4 total shots per game, which is not high in and of itself, but he is the Blues’ highest shot-taker, which suggests that if Mauricio Pochettino’s men were creating more shots, more shots would fall to the Senegal forward.
Højlund’s case is different, and unfavorably so. Despite Erik ten Hag’s men taking more shots than the Blues, three players are taking more than two shots per game (neither of which is Højlund), and five players are taking more shots per game than the Denmark striker. Fernandes, who is the best shot creator on the team, is also the highest shot-taker.
Alejandro Garnacho, Marcus Rashford, Antony, and indeed Scott McTominay take more shots per game than the former Atalanta striker. This shows that Man United’s new striker signing cannot blame the team’s shot creation on his lack of shooting. The current numbers suggest that if Man United were creating more shots, those shots are more likely to fall to other players than Højlund.
Højlund’s movement may be creating space for others to take shots, but his shot quality suggests he is prioritizing the wrong thing if he is not consciously trying to get himself in positions to take shots more often.
Fernandes is making 5.5 Shot-Creating Actions (SCA) per90, which means that Fernandes is contributing to more than five different shots per90. Those shots are falling to Manchester United players, but the majority of them aren’t falling to Højlund. Shots are being created at Manchester United, but they aren’t falling to the striker. This is the issue.
Højlund needs to improve his movement such that he continues to get the type of chances he gets now, but much more often. 1.7 shots per90 is way too low for someone playing on a team with someone that contributes to 5.5 shots per90. Other players are getting shooting chances more regularly than Højlund, and that needs to change. His finishing only needs to be OK if he gets many more chances per game. At this rate, he has to be a Kane-level finisher to have any kind of success at Manchester United.
