What you should know about Højlund

A Scandinavian striker who is blond, tall, unusually fast for his size and favors his left foot, you say? This sounds familiar…

By Lars Sivertsen, Football Expert for Betsson

When Atalanta signed Rasmus Højlund from Sturm Graz for a reported 17 million euro last summer it raised some eyebrows. After all, it’s not often a club pays that kind of money for a player from the Austrian league – and when someone does inevitably the selling club is named Red Bull Salzburg. Furthermore, Højlund had only been in Austria since January last year. He’d played just 21 games for Sturm Graz, and before that he’d been a substitute at FC Copenhagen with no league goals to his name. So Atalanta were paying 17 million on the back of what, 12 goals in 21 games in Austria for Sturm Graz? Really?

But there are some clubs who have shown over the years that when it comes to the transfer market they at least deserve the benefit of the doubt. Atalanta are very much one of them. They don’t get things very wrong very often. When the club from Bergamo decide to spend 17 million euro, one the biggest transfer fees they’d ever paid out, on a pretty untested 19 year-old, they’re doing this because they’ve spotted something. It was a slow start for Højlund in Serie A, with the forward scoring just once in his first 11 appearances for Atalanta in the second half of 2022. In fairness to Højlund, most of those appearances came off the bench. After the winter break things started looking up, and he scored in three consecutive games in January. He added five more before the end of the Serie A season. So a reasonable start to his life in Serie A, but his goal-tally isn’t exactly amazing. Why then, is he such a hot name in the summer transfer window?

“I think for a player that’s over 190 cms tall, you’d expect him to be a classic big centre forward. But it’s more about his pace”, Tor-Kristian Karlsen explained to The Lars Resort podcast back in April. Karlsen is an experienced scout and executive who has worked for several European clubs, including a stint as CEO and sporting director at Monaco. For Atalanta, Højlund has particularly impressed in the transitional phase of the game. “He’s so quick with the ball. Backed up by his natural strength it’s almost impossible to stop him in those situations”, Karlsen says. “Obviously he has been likened to a certain Norwegian striker, because of those particular qualities. There are certainly similarities. These players are rare. Given his characteristics, every one of the eight-ten most well-off clubs in the world would be looking at him.”

Looking at data from the Fbref website, Højlund stands out in a handful of categories. This most obvious is that his non-penalty expected goals per 90 minutes on the pitch is a healthy 0.47, which puts him ahead of 84% of the other strikers in the top 5 European leagues in this category. For a young, unpolished striker playing his first season in a big league, this is a perfectly respectable return. He is also in the top 25^th percentile for “progressive carries” and the top 17^th percentile for “successful take-ons”, which backs up the impression of him being a quick and confident runner with the ball. He also stands out in terms of touches in the opposition box and “progressive passes received”, and while playing for an attack-minded team like Atalanta certainly helps in these categories it does also show that he’s a player who is able to find space and make himself available for incisive passes.

The potential transfer fee being mentioned for Højlund seems big given what he has actually shown on the pitch so far, but there is a scarcity of elite level number 9s at the moment and his potential is exciting. His combination of size and speed is unusual, and brings with it inevitable comparisons to a certain Manchester City forward. You can hardly blame other top clubs for wishing they too had a tall, strong and fast Scandinavian striker with a dangerous left foot. And if you think the reported transfer fee this summer is big, pause for a moment and consider what price tag Atalanta would put on him in January if he has an explosive start to next season.

It’s a lot of money to pay for potential, but the potential is there and the player clearly has an unusual, much sought after combination of attributes. It’s a risk, but one that could pay off big. 

Listen to The Lars Resort podcast here: https://soundcloud.com/user-721285592