Manchester United striker Rasmus Hojlund had a quiet night as Denmark lost 5-2 to Portugal in the Nations League quarter-final.
The Dane was the hero just a few days earlier as he scored the only goal in his side’s 1-0 victory over Portugal.
He famously did Cristiano Ronaldo’s signature “siu” celebration in front of the Portuguese legend, but insisted it was paying tribute to the famous number seven.
Nonetheless, in this match he was overshadowed by his United teammates in the national squad. Christian Eriksen scored a goal and Patrick Dorgu put in a fine performance at left back, including the assist for Eriksen.
Much was expected of Hojlund, having created a goal in United’s Europa League win over Real Sociedad and scoring a goal against Leicester City in the last game before the international break, to go alongside his strike for his national team in the first leg.
But after the green shoots of recovery for both United and Denmark, Hojlund’s performance last night returned to the all-too-familiar one of frustrating anonymity.
Sofascore gave him a rating of just 6.6 for the 73 minutes he played.
The 22 year old only managed one shot on target in the match.
He had only 25 touches of the ball and completed just 12 passes in the match, none of which were classified as key passes.
Hojlund was also rather ineffective in his duels, losing all three of his aerial battles. The Danish striker only won two out of his five ground duels.
He lost the ball eight times and made one defensive clearance in the match.
And it was Ronaldo who got the last laugh in the tie, performing his own “siu” after scoring Portugal’s second goal.
Red Devil fans will be hoping that Hojlund can soon get back to goalscoring ways when he returns to his club as United have a huge month of fixtures in both the Premier League and Europa League on the horizon.
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
