Just watched Match of the Day, and have seen the travails of Hojlund. On twitter there were the usual “he just needs one to go in and he’ll be away” sort of posts.
But it got me thinking, what examples are there of players that struggled at first, but went on to be really important and effective strikers? Obviously, youth team players that came through the ranks don’t count. Really just big signings at big clubs.
Higuain was youngster first two seasons. He was 18 or 19 when he came to Madrid, and Ronaldo didn’t even play there at the time.
He was a regular starter those 18 months, he’d only played about 10 fewer games when joining Real than Højlund had when joining Man Utd. €12million was a decent chunk of change too - he wasn’t a “youngster” he was signed for the first team and almost immediately started playing for them, replacing original Ronaldo