There are a lot of similarities between Erling Haaland and Rasmus Hojlund.

Both are taller than 6 feet and have blond hair. In the last third, both are very cruel. Both could be playing for Manchester clubs when the new Premier League season starts.

United boss Erik ten Hag said on Monday that the club had made progress in its search for a new forward.

Hojlund, who is 20, is still the most obvious goal, but Manchester United don’t want to pay Atalanta £60 million for the Danish international.

But what would he bring to the Premier League and United’s attack, and can he really compete with Haaland?

After playing for Boldklubben af 1893 and Brondby as a young player, Hojlund started his professional career with Copenhagen in 2020, when he was 17 years old.

As a young player, he had trouble in the Danish Superliga because he was still growing. He left the league in January 2022 without scoring in any of his 19 league games, though only two of those were starts.

He joined the Austrian team Sturm Graz, which was a great move for his career.

In the second half of the 2021-22 season, Hojlund scored a goal every other game, for a total of nine goals in 17 games.

Hojlund stood out because of how dangerous his left foot was and how smart he was at football. The striker got very good at moving into space and timing his runs so that he could set up a wide range of goals.

Because of how well he played, he moved to Atalanta in Italy for about £15 million, which is 10 times what Sturm Graz paid for him in January.

Now, that price seems like a good deal.

Last season, he played 47 games for the Serie A team and made his debut for Denmark in September. In those 47 games, he scored 20 goals.

In two European Championship qualifiers for Denmark in March, he scored five goals, including a hat trick against Finland.