The Denmark international spent one season at Atalanta before making his mega-money move to Old Trafford last summer for a fee of £70million. It ended up a dream night for the Italians, with Atalanta running out shock 3-0 winners thanks to a Gianluca Scamacca brace before a late Mario Pasalic strike. Hojlund was quick to take to social media to express his delight at his old side getting one over on his new rivals.

Soon after thee full-time whistle was blown, the 21-year-old uploaded a picture of the scoreline on. The comment is a saying local to the Bergamo region that will only endear Hojlund further to the Atalanta fanbase. It translates in most languages to “never give up”.

Of course, the tie is not yet over, with the second-leg set to take place next week. “Unfortunately there is nothing really positive to say about the game,” he told TNT Sport after the game. “The start was good and we were maybe unlucky with Harvey hitting the crossbar and that period we 100% deserved to be 1-0 up.

Darwin’s chance was another good moment so that was really good. “But from a specific moment on it became a really bad game and there is nothing positive to say about that. I didn’t like our discipline in possession.

We were everywhere, which then means nowhere. No counter-press, we played into their hands. “A lot of performances tonight were really ‘oops, wow, I didn’t know they could play like that.’

A lot of the players looked really alone in a lot of moments. It was really bad. We had our biggest chances in the end and didn’t use them.”

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