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The Napoli sporting director, Giovanni Manna, considers Rasmus Højlund’s permanent transfer from Manchester United a “formality”.
Højlund 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’s 2-0 win at Cremonese. Napoli are third in Serie A, occupying one of Italy’s four Champions League places.
“We did everything we could to sign him,” Manna told Corriere dello Sport. “There were more storied clubs interested, but his will was crucial, and we are proud of it. There’s 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.”
Asked if Højlund’s permanent Napoli transfer was just a “formality,” Manna replied: “As of today, I think so.”
Højlund joined United from Atalanta in August 2023 for £64m, plus a potential £8m in add-ons. The 22-year-old scored 14 goals in 62 Premier League appearances, and the fee for Højlund to move to Napoli is believed to be £38m. Benjamin Sesko, Højlund’s 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 £73.7m.
United finish 2025 in sixth place after a disappointing performance, which their former captain Gary Neville described as “the baddest of the bad”, in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw against Wolves.
“They weren’t just booed off at full time,” Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast. “The fans waited in the stadium to continue to boo them. They’ve gone backwards.”
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 “just tactical”. On Amorim’s substitutions, Neville added: “They made Manchester United worse. Every single substitution was bizarre. If Zirkzee wasn’t injured and that was a tactical substitution, it was a really poor one. Zirkzee isn’t Eric Cantona, by any stretch of the imagination, but he needed to be out there for physicality, for presence, for experience.”
