Gary Neville 'feels sorry' for one Man Utd player who's dealing with 'impossible' job

Gary Neville has expressed his sympathy for Manchester United striker Rasmus Hojlund.

It has been a tough Premier League baptism for the young Dane, who joined United from Atalanta for a fee rising to £72million in July. Either side of a rich vein of mid-season form, when he scored eight goals inside two months, Hojlund has struggled to make an impact.

He hasn’t been helped by the team’s numerous issues across the pitch, which has left Erik ten Hag’s job hanging by a thread. Former United defender Neville feels the 21-year-old has been hampered by the team’s lack of direction and by not being given a consistent role in the team.

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Writing in newsletter for The Overlap, the Sky Sports pundit said: “Watching Hojlund, I felt sorry for him. You talk about the difficulty United have had putting out a consistent back four this season. But it’s the same up front.

“Hojlund doesn’t know what the pattern of play is, whether the wide player is going to go to the line or come inside. You can see he’s making good runs all the time and then the wide man will come back inside and there will be a 15-pass sequence.

“Another time he’ll drop in and try to join in with that and that will inevitably be the time the wide man decides to get to the line and cross it. Until United can establish a consistent pattern of play, being centre forward in that team will be an impossible job.”

Ten Hag insists Hojlund has the potential to be a Premier League star, but needs time. During a recent interview with Neville for Sky Sports, the Dutchman said: “We have had some choices made with talents like Rasmus Hojlund. I can see a striker [Harry Kane] who already proved it, who we want to sign and we couldn’t get him. And then we went to Rasmus because he’s a talent.

“With Harry Kane you know you get 30 goals. I think Rasmus will get there but he needs time. It’s not fair to assess him the same as Harry Kane. I would never compare two players because they are very different.

“But with Rasmus Hojlund, we get the highest potential in the striker position last summer. We are very happy with him, but he also needs time to adapt. We are very pleased he has showed his capacity to score goals.”