{"id":260122,"date":"2025-12-31T16:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T16:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/260122\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T16:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T16:38:07","slug":"napoli-say-rasmus-hojlunds-permanent-move-from-manchester-united-a-formality-napoli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/260122\/","title":{"rendered":"Napoli say Rasmus H\u00f8jlund\u2019s permanent move from Manchester United a \u2018formality\u2019 | Napoli"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Napoli sporting director, Giovanni Manna, considers Rasmus H\u00f8jlund\u2019s permanent transfer from Manchester United<\/a> a \u201cformality\u201d.<\/p>\n

H\u00f8jlund joined the Serie A champions on loan last summer and the Denmark striker has scored nine goals in 20 appearances, including a double in Sunday\u2019s 2-0 win at Cremonese. Napoli<\/a> are third in Serie A, occupying one of Italy\u2019s four Champions League places.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did everything we could to sign him,\u201d Manna told Corriere dello Sport. \u201cThere were more storied clubs interested, but his will was crucial, and we are proud of it. There\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

Asked if H\u00f8jlund\u2019s permanent Napoli transfer was just a \u201cformality,\u201d Manna replied: \u201cAs of today, I think so.\u201d<\/p>\n

H\u00f8jlund joined United from Atalanta in August 2023 for \u00a364m, plus a potential \u00a38m in add-ons. The 22-year-old scored 14 goals in 62 Premier League appearances, and the fee for H\u00f8jlund to move to Napoli is believed to be \u00a338m. Benjamin Sesko, H\u00f8jlund\u2019s replacement at Old Trafford, has struggled to adapt to the Premier League and scored only twice since joining from RB Leipzig in a deal worth up to \u00a373.7m.<\/p>\n

United finish 2025 in sixth place after a disappointing performance, which their former captain Gary Neville described as \u201cthe baddest of the bad\u201d, in Tuesday\u2019s 1-1 draw against Wolves<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey weren\u2019t just booed off at full time,\u201d Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast. \u201cThe fans waited in the stadium to continue to boo them. They\u2019ve gone backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joshua Zirkzee scored just his second goal of the season to put United in front but was substituted at half-time in a move that the manager, Ruben Amorim, described as \u201cjust tactical\u201d. On Amorim\u2019s substitutions, Neville added: \u201cThey made Manchester United worse. Every single substitution was bizarre. If Zirkzee wasn\u2019t injured and that was a tactical substitution, it was a really poor one. Zirkzee isn\u2019t Eric Cantona, by any stretch of the imagination, but he needed to be out there for physicality, for presence, for experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Napoli sporting director, Giovanni Manna, considers Rasmus H\u00f8jlund\u2019s permanent transfer from Manchester United a \u201cformality\u201d. H\u00f8jlund joined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-260122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115815167138751721","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}