Joshua Zirkzee image 11

Joshua Zirkzee Netherlands flag

2024-25 Performances

View full 2024-25 profile

5.8 Season Average Rating
Appearances
7
Goals
1
Assists
0
Yellow cards
1
GDaly95 said:
I really like him. I think his link up play is fantastic.

The only thing is that I don't know how you bring goals into the team without having to exclude him.

I think you probably need prolific wingers, like Firmino was fine because he had Mane and Salah on either side. We don't have that.

It's a bit of a conundrum.
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Drop Bruno and play him behind Hojlund with Garnacho/Rashford and Amad out wide.

Obviously it will never happen but still.
 
Godfather said:
We currently have the choice between him, a technically tidy false nine that's unthreatening and a more threatening classic nine with the touch of a donkey as our striker options.
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Zirkzee any day of the week. Zirkzee only lacks finishing, he has everything else.
 
Would like to see (under a competent manager):

-------------------------Onana
Mazraoui - De Ligt - Martinez - Dalot
-------------Ugarte----------Mainoo------------
Amad-------------Zirkzee--------Garnacho
----------------------Hojlund
 
Bwuk said:
McTominay is way better.

If we played McTominay as a false 9 for the 7 games this season Zirkzee has, I’d be amazed if he didn’t score more than 1.
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Yup. But familiarity breeds contempt. Zirkzee is still new and shiny but flatters to deceive. The new Martial as it stands.
 
A bit baffled by the negativity in this thread. He looks excellent on the ball, has good movement. He strikes the ball well, and my favourite part of his game is he makes others around him play better.

He’s been here for a handful of games, so the best is yet to come. I’m really happy with this signing.
 
Rockets Redglare said:
Drop Bruno and play him behind Hojlund with Garnacho/Rashford and Amad out wide.

Obviously it will never happen but still.
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Exactly. I think Zirkzee is the number 10, then Mount the more deeper/defensive 10 and that should be our two. Sell Bruno & Rashford get a a good £100 plus.

I think our squad has depth but is disproportionate. Good depth in defence & cm, also at the number 10 position. But we only have 1 out an out striker and two wingers that deserve to start weekly.
 
He’s going to divide opinion but I rate him highly. Fantastic on the ball and helps us keep the ball and make things happen despite a clear plan on the pitch. He won’t score many as we don’t make many chances, that’s the same story for basically all our players.
 
He makes us play better. Over a longer period of time, I will have to make an opinion on how much or little of a goal threat he is, although I’m inclined to believe, on initial viewing, that he has the capability to score a decent amount of goals. He strikes the ball well, and gets a reasonable amount of chances. I think he’s been just as unlucky as he has been poor in front of goal so far, and I’ve seen enough to suggest his fortunes could change quickly.

That said, we are always noticeably worse when he goes off.
 
Spent 100 mill combined on this guy.. a striker who can't score and Hojlund... a striker who'd struggle to control a beach ball... We really know how to pick them.
 
Just back from the stadium, obviously watched him a few times in the flesh now and I love his ability to bring others into the game with his neat link up but I just don't think you can afford to start with somebody with such poor movement as your main striker. I've watched him and he doesn't move in the box he's a defenders dream.

I lost count of the amount of times the lads had the ball and he either didn't make a run or he just stands static behind a centre half offering no angle for a cross or pass into the box.

We needed a goalscorer, he's nothing like that we already have Mount and Bruno to link play.
 
This was a signing I never understood. He's a talented player, yes, but we already have a talented albeit unpolished striker so we didn't need another. Yes, he's a completely different type of striker to Hojlund but then you need the players around him for him to be successful.

Firmino was the same type of forward but he played with a 30 goals a season winger so he didn't need to score. Who in our squad, apart from Hojlund, could you realistically say can score 30 goals that you can afford to have a striker whose main attribute isn't to score goals? Rashford of a couple of seasons back, yes, but he's been consistently inconsistent so you can't trust him every season.

Not a bad player at all but a baffling signing considering our squad and needs.
 
Like the player generally, but don't think he's ever going to be prolific.

Which means you need more goals from your wide players, and/or more goals from the striker you play instead of or with him.

In a couple of seasons time we might have that, in which case Zirkzee may look a useful asset in a better side and a shrewd long term signing. For now, he's an improvement on the literal absence of a second striker we had last season.
 
Just drop Bruno, play him a bit deeper and bring in Hojlund. He won’t do very well as a striker from what we are seeing unless he improves
 
If we had prime Salah and Mane on the wings then this fella would be fine upfront, but we don't have wingers who are prolific scorers, so we need our forward to be prolific. Signing him made no sense
 
I’m surprised to see so man have decided that he will never score a good amount of goals. It took Hojlund up to Boxing Day last season to get his first league goal here. If Zirkzee works hard on his movement and finishing as I’m sure he is, he can score a lot of goals in this league.
 
Serious post. I think some of you are seriously overselling the impact of his linkup play and having new signing fever.

A few nice touches and a bringing people into play is nowhere near enough. His mobility seems like a very big issue, he just doesn’t seem like a threat and that’s a big problem.

It’s uncanny how similar he is to Berbatov. Not as far as quality because Berba was a much better player but their impact on the teams they played in. In 08/09, when Berbatov first joined I remember the positivity of his first month or so where we were in awe of his touches and some of his linkup play. Fast forward a couple of months later and there was frustration with his lack of impact on the game on both sides of the ball and tame finishing.

I see the same scenario for Zirkzee and potentially even worse because Berba played in a team where his lack of goal scoring at the time could be covered. Zirkzee is in a team that needs him to be a scorer when he just isn’t one.

I also don’t buy that he’s a No.10 he will fail badly at that. He needs to be in a two striker system or a false nine with goal scoring wingers. I was against this signing all summer and have seen nothing to change my mind so far.
 
Would like to see him playing in behind Hojlund as that would appear to be his best position.

That would likely mean dropping Bruno though which Erik will never do
 
I think if the likes of Rashford and Bruno get their scoring boots on then he'll be really useful. If they don't you can't really afford to have a striker like him on the pitch.

But that's the makeup of the team more than him. Firmino would've been crap in this team too.
 
lsd said:
Would like to see him playing in behind Hojlund as that would appear to be his best position.

That would likely mean dropping Bruno though which Erik will never do
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Bruno played on the right with all subs in. Unless you mean Zirkzee should play on the right.
 
I agree with all of the above, but one concern I have is his lack of pace. There were loose balls tonight for him to run onto and the defenders always got there first. I've seen him miss two tap ins in 2 games, because he was a yard off the pace of the ball. I thought Hojlund would have buried both of them if he was in the same position.

I know it is early days, but we need to decide if we're playing with a striker, or someone who drops deep, because when he's trying to do both, he is in 2 minds and missing balls fizzed into the box.
 
Wheato said:
I agree with all of the above, but one concern I have is his lack of pace. There were loose balls tonight for him to run onto and the defenders always got there first. I've seen him miss two tap ins in 2 games, because he was a yard off the pace of the ball. I thought Hojlund would have buried both of them if he was in the same position.

I know it is early days, but we need to decide if we're playing with a striker, or someone who drops deep, because when he's trying to do both, he is in 2 minds and missing balls fizzed into the box.
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This is the issue though. He never is. He’ll do well to get one decent chance a game. We’ll all decide it’s because of service and nobody wants to pass him the ball, but Zirkzee misses far more chances than Hojlund even gets, and this is all while supposedly being this withdrawn striker rather than a natural 9.

Hojlund too often last season was just a pointless entity on the pitch. I’m curious to see more of Zirkzee, and I don’t know if we can conclude his finishing to be poor just yet either.
 
He is useless as a Center Forward bacause he is one of the worst finishers ive seen, he does a lot of really good stuff in other areas but when it comes to finishing he is hopeless.
 
He was bad tonight. Needs to get his shit together. Cant be coasting through games and just have couple of silky touches. He does drop deep to get involved and we do play better with him in the team but needs to show more desire to get himself back into the box. He was non-existent in the 2nd half.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
He is useless as a Center Forward bacause he is one of the worst finishers ive seen, he does a lot of really good stuff in other areas but when it comes to finishing he is hopeless.
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For fecks sake, after 4-5 games you're making that assessment? He had a lovely finish in his first ever appearance and has had at least a couple efforts that were denied by good/great saves. Yeah his finishing has been a bit underwhelming but among the worst you've ever seen? Ridiculous.
 
I think I underestimated him a little bit. He's actually really really good and his ceiling might be higher than I suspected too.

He's not a prolific striker right now, but that was known before we signed him anyways, and very importantly, it was not the role he was brought in for. I can see him becoming a 30+ G/A player in the future, as I think he has the tools for it, but I don't think it's going to happen until his late 20s, if it does. But as a facilitator type "9.5" he's really good already and it's what he was brought in for.
 
Currently looks like Wout reincarnation, but this could well be do to him being out of sync with the rest of the attacking partners. He got a lot of dangerous passes just few inches away from where he could receive them with ease and make something out of it.
 
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