Former Manchester United striker Andy Cole has set a target of 25 goals for Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee this season.
After arriving from Newcastle in January 1995, Cole made 195 appearances in the top division for the Reds, scoring 93 times. An average goal return of one per every other game is the mark of a great striker and our forwards could all take a page from his book.
It will be Hojlund’s second season at the club and he will miss the first few weeks of the campaign due to injury.
Zirkzee did not make an appearance during pre-season or in the Community Shield, so we expect to see the Dutch forward make his debut against Fulham at Old Trafford next Friday.
The Netherlands international was an unused substitute when United took on City at Wembley. Erik ten Hag started the game with Bruno Fernandes playing in a false nine role and it was telling we lacked the presence of a centre-forward with multiple chances wasted in front of goal.
Speaking to Betfred, as quoted by the Manchester Evening News, Cole said: “Everybody needs a full pre-season. When you miss a pre-season, or you miss a couple of weeks, you’re always going to be playing catch up. When you go into the season playing catch up, then it becomes a little bit difficult because everybody else is a couple of weeks in front of you.
“Against Arsenal in pre-season, Rasmus looked fit and strong coming back from the Euros and those are his assets anyway because he’s a physical, old fashioned centre-forward. I spoke to him briefly and he’s looking forward to the new season. There’s no doubt that he just wants to go out there and score as many goals as possible. Manchester United for a while haven’t had a striker that has scored 25 goals in a season, so it has to be one of Rasmus or Zirkzee or the pair of them could hopefully get 15 goals each and then you have others chipping in around them.”
It will be Zirkzee’s first season at United so I think he should be aiming to hit double figures at the very least.
On the other hand, Hojlund scored 10 goals in the Premier League last season.
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