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Rasmus Hojlund arrived with the Manchester United squad at the Etihad Stadium but was missed during the derby defeat to City.
The Denmark international won his first club Player of the Month award at the weekend after a fabulous February that featured five goals in four games, before an injury brought a halt to his hot scoring streak.
It is hoped last summer’s signing will be back in action soon, with the initial diagnosis that he would be out for two to three weeks. The muscle problem has cause him to sit out the games against Fulham, Nottingham Forest and City.
Andy Cole knows a thing or two about goalscoring, so we caught up with the United legend at Old Trafford recently, as part of a WOW Hydrate event, to discuss Hojlund’s hot form.
Cole, like Rasmus, opened his account for the Reds in the Premier League with a home goal against Aston Villa and can appreciate just what a lift that provided as a launchpad for what has followed for the centre-forward.
“A lot was expected of him, when he first came here,” the Treble winner told club media. “He was a young man under a lot of pressure, with a big price-tag, in a team that wasn’t creating many chances.
“I think it’s a good thing for him as now he’s got that confidence. Confidence is a massive thing in football. He got off the mark against Villa and the goals have continued since then. For me, personally, I just want to see him continue to do that.
“Yeah, there’s going to be a time when he’s not scoring goals, it’s part and parcel of football but, so long as he keeps doing the right things, he’ll be okay.”
Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, both also great United strikers of the past, have spoken about the ‘ketchup’ theory: how one goal can spark a flood like when you’re trying to get the sauce out of the bottle.
This is certainly true of Hojlund’s exploits as he’s scored in every game he’s played, bar the Emirates FA Cup third-round tie at Wigan Athletic, when he hit the bar, since that memorable winner against Villa on Boxing Day. With a brace last time out at Luton Town, it’s a streak of eight in eight outings.
“It’s like buses,” declared Cole, who hit 93 goals in 195 Premier League appearances under Sir Alex Ferguson. “You miss one and get another one and there are plenty more that come after that.
“Look, I keep saying, when he first came here, of course he took a bit of flak. He hadn’t scored a goal [in the Premier League] and looked like he was playing with a little bit less confidence. Once he gets the first one, the second one comes very quickly as well, and his confidence grows.
“If you look at him now, after his first goal in the team to when he wasn’t scoring goals, he’s puffed out his chest, his shoulders are back and he’s playing out there and doing things he knows what he can do now. That’s what you do with confidence.
“Like I said before, long may it continue. There’s going to be a time when you score goals and a time when you don’t score goals. But keep doing the basics and we’ll be okay.”
Rasmus Hojlund scored in six successive Premier League games, before injury.
Cole would not be drawn on a goal target for his fellow frontman, merely insisting that the focus must remain on what the team can achieve in terms of qualifying for European football in 2024/25.
“As many as he can,” he replied. “It’s that simple. If you look at it in a broader scope, it’s not about one individual scoring as many goals as possible. The position Manchester United find themselves in now is trying to finish in European competition.
“Yeah, naturally, everyone wants the Champions League but, if you don’t get in the Champions League, it’s being involved in European competition. I think the Champions League goes down to fifth, maybe [depending on the English teams’ results in this year’s European competitions], but there is a lot of work to do from now until the end of the season, to try to finish fourth or fifth.
“There are still teams in front of them, and a few points in front, so you’re hoping the teams in front lose games and you win every game and go on a run until the end of the season unbeaten. It’s going be some run so can they do it? We’ll have to wait and see. I think we all know they’ve been inconsistent this season, some good games and then bad games, so let’s see how we get on.”
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Cole refuses to accept the striker’s position has changed since his heyday, finding the net so regularly that he is still fourth on the all-time list of scorers for the Premier League. The ex-England international’s final figure of 187 is behind only Alan Shearer, Harry Kane and Wayne Rooney’s tallies.
While Hojlund felt in our recent interview that the centre-forward’s role is very different due to current-day tactics, with all the pressing, the 52-year-old disagrees.
“There’s always been that anyway,” he countered. “Football has never changed. It all depends on how the respective team plays. If you’re working from the back, in my day, we were working with four of us. Two centre-forwards with a left-sided midfielder and a right-sided midfield player. As a team, you were the first line of your defence, with the two centre-forwards. So I say pressing from the front.
“Football hasn’t changed. You might do it a different way but it hasn’t changed what they’re doing now to what we used to do 10 or 15 years ago. Doing exactly the same thing.”
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