Rasmus Hojlund stole the limelight as Manchester United made heavy weather of beating Bodø/Glimt in the Europa League.
Speaking to TNT Sports shortly after the final whistle, the Danish striker reassured fans that the team are determined to move away from the unnecessary drama which has characterised their European campaign so far.
“We want to make sure these games don’t get too exciting,” he said. “Obviously the game [tonight] was about getting the three points, and we did the job.”
United rallied well to secure the points, but they couldn’t have done it without the sterling efforts of the 21-year-old.
Hojlund bagged a brace and ferociously chased down the goalkeeper to engineer an open goal for Alejandro Garnacho’s first-minute opener.
Within 50 seconds of kick off, the Dane was putting into practice the heavy-pressing philosophy of new manager Ruben Amorim. “He told me today not to think too much about the guys behind me,” he said.
He added that Amorim encouraged him to “try to work a little bit more on what I can see in front and be very aggressive towards the goal.”
It was a hit-and-miss night for the Portuguese’s methods, with the 3-4-3 formation seeing United stutter at times, and Hojlund acknowledged that it will take time to adapt.
“Obviously it’s going to take time, but I think you can already see now, today, some patterns and it’s getting better,” he said.
While the new formation has its teething problems, the number 9 is relishing it: “for me this reminds me a little bit of how I played in Atalanta in a 3-4-3 and it suits me very well.”
The youngster admitted that he hadn’t had a chance to catch up with his goals, but gave some insight on the mood amongst his teammates.
When asked about his outstanding first goal, he said: “I haven’t seen it back, but I’ve been told by the others that it was very good, and obviously I’m to go home now and see it again.
And speaking about the build-up to his second, the striker revealed that he is making an effort to stay inside the six-yard-box as part of his work with the new manager. “The manager told me to try to stick to running at the first post. We saw how it worked out,” he said.
The 3-2 win over the Norwegian champions is United’s second victory in a row in the Europa League, but could easily have gone the way of their opening three matches which all ended as frustrating draws.
United threw away leads against FC Twente and Fenerbahce, which both ended 1-1, and relied on a 91st-minute equaliser to salvage a 3-3 draw against Porto.
They next travel to the Czech Republic to play Viktoria Plzeň on December 12th.
Featured image Justin Setterfield via Getty Images
Joe Ponting
Joe has spent more than half his life writing about football and all of it following United. As a child he told a doctor his name was ‘Paul Scholes’, but could never pick a pass like him no matter how much he tried.
