Napoli sporting director Giovanni Manna has confirmed that the permanent signing of Manchester United loanee Rasmus H\u00f8jlund is merely a \u201cformality\u201d. <\/p>\n
Following the restructuring of United<\/a>\u2019s forward line last summer, H\u00f8jlund was forced out of the exit door and ended up making a temporary season-long move to Serie A champions Napoli. The 22-year-old was seeking to reinvigorate his career on his return to Italy and he\u2019s certainly achieved that ambition. <\/p>\n The Denmark international has scored nine times across all competitions for Antonio Conte\u2019s side and has even clinched his first piece of silverware for the club in the form of the 2025\u201326 Supercoppa Italiana. <\/p>\n EXCLUSIVE. Hojlund interview. The Truth Behind Rasmus Hojlund\u2019s Man Utd Exit. dark<\/p>\n After the Supercoppa final victory over Bologona, H\u00f8jlund took to social media<\/a> to taunt his parent club, posting a picture of himself with the trophy alongside the caption: \u201cWhat a great decision looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n Napoli have certainly been impressed with his contributions and club chief Manna has revealed that the striker\u2019s loan move is destined to become permanent come the end of the season. <\/p>\n Asked by Corriere dello Sport <\/a>if H\u00f8jlund\u2019s permanent move to Napoli was a formality, Manna replied: \u201cAs of today, I think so.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThere\u2019s an option to buy and an obligation to buy if we qualify for the Champions League. The player considers himself a Napoli player, and the same goes for us. This is extremely important.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite joining United for an initial fee of \u00a364 million ($86 million) from Atalanta in 2023, Napoli are expected to sign the forward for just \u00a338 million. The transfer will go down as another major blunder for the Red Devils during an era characterised by dismal recruitment at Old Trafford. <\/p>\n H\u00f8jlund found himself under intense scrutiny following two mediocre seasons at Old Trafford. He followed up a 16-goal debut campaign with just 10 strikes last term, struggling under Ruben Amorim alongside fellow forward Joshua Zirkzee, but the Napoli loanee has rebuffed suggestions that he underperformed in Manchester. <\/p>\n Speaking with Sports Illustrated, H\u00f8jlund revealed<\/a>: \u201cIt was a lot of attention and a lot of pressure, obviously. But I feel like it was hard for me not to take that step as I was a United fan. And I feel like I did well.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could argue I probably needed a year [more at Atalanta] or whatever, but I feel like it was the right step for me,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd like I said, I think I did well in my first year, especially, where I became top scorer and in the team and had a good campaign in the Champions League<\/a> and so on, and won a trophy with the guys.\u201d<\/p>\n United turned to RB Leipzig striker Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko as their next No. 9 project last summer and the Slovenian has endured a stuttering start to his career in English football. Just two goals in 16 matches for the club is hardly an eye-catching tally and he appears set to fall short of H\u00f8jlund\u2019s opening season numbers. <\/p>\n READ THE LATEST MAN UTD NEWS, TRANSFER RUMORS AND MORE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Napoli sporting director Giovanni Manna has confirmed that the permanent signing of Manchester United loanee Rasmus H\u00f8jlund is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-381551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}