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Dwight Yorke admits he would swap Manchester United striker Rasmus Hojlund for Liverpool star Darwin Nunez ‘any day of the week’.
Much was expected of Hojlund following his £72m move from Atalanta last summer but the Danish forward endured an underwhelming first season at Old Trafford.
Hojlund finished the campaign with 16 goals in all competitions but the 21-year-old still attracted criticism for his performances, with some pundits questioning whether he was at the required level to lead the line for Manchester United.
Similar questions have been asked of Nunez, who has had a mixed spell at Liverpool following an £85m move from Benfica in 2022.
Nunez has been slightly less prolific than Hojlund – scoring 20 goals in 65 Premier League games – but Yorke believes the Anfield star has ‘more in his locker’.
‘If I could, I’d swap Rasmus Hojlund for Darwin Nunez because he has more in his locker,’ Yorke told BoyleSports, who offer the latest Premier League betting.
‘He has pace, he has power, he can head the ball, he has the presence – he just needs to improve his finishing and he’d be the best striker in the league.
‘We need to wait and see if he can do that, but as a manager, I’d choose Nunez over Hojlund any day of the week.’
Ex-Liverpool striker Michael Owen felt Nunez would develop into an ‘unstoppable’ forward when he first arrived at Anfield but is ‘starting to doubt’ his goalscoring instinct.
‘When it comes to finishing, you can practice certain scenarios and you can put yourself in certain situations and drill a certain finish – and certain areas of where you can finish from is definitely helpful,’ Owen told OLBG.
‘I always go back to Mohamed Salah, I look at him and his finishing ability when I first set eyes on him, then you look at him now and he’s a 10 times better finisher.
‘Conversely, when I look at Nunez, when he first turned up I saw a raw player and thought that if he can be coached well, if he can learn, if he can add a bit to his game, he could be unstoppable.
‘But sadly, I’m still saying the same thing now. That leads me to believe that he’ll struggle to score the numbers of goals that his potential suggests he could.
‘So I’m starting to doubt that he can win a Golden Boot, whereas when he first joined I thought, wow, this guy could develop into something special.
‘He’s still a very, very talented player and will score a handful, but the question is can he win a Golden Boot? Not on the evidence I’ve seen.’
Hojlund, who featured at Euro 2024 for Denmark, is expected to miss the first six weeks of the new season after suffering a hamstring injury in a pre-season game against Arsenal.
Nunez has no such concerns as he prepares for Liverpool’s Premier League opener against newly-promoted Ipswich Town on Saturday.
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