Joshua Zirkzee image 11

Joshua Zirkzee Netherlands flag

2024-25 Performances

View full 2024-25 profile

5.0 Season Average Rating
Appearances
20
Goals
3
Assists
2
Yellow cards
1
He came on and made 10 passes with 70% accuracy, worst in the team

I havent seen his lack of effort since Di Maria decided he wanted to leave and didnt bother to chase loose balls
 
He's played 18 times and has 1 goal.


Surely the worst striker in the league at this point.
 
This guy is absolute bobbins, we needed more energy and dynamism in the team so what did we so? We bought an absolute sloth. Shocking player.
 
Bwuk said:
He's played 18 times and has 1 goal.


Surely the worst striker in the league at this point.
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If you’re judging purely off game time vs goals then he is performing exactly the same as Hojlund, and better than Gakpo, Calvert-Lewin, Antonio and a bunch of other wide forwards so a bit dramatic.
 
Djemba-Djemba said:
He may be even worse than Weghorst.

Which I didn't think was possible.
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He 100% worse than Weghorst, at least Wout worked his socks off and gave his all during his time. This lad is clearly more talented but he is so lazy and half arsed it's almost like he's messing about in some sort of five aside game against lesser players. The shot yesterday was also bizarre, Alan Smith said it on the commentary, there was no conviction in the shot. He just kind of lofted it over the bar.

Get him gone in January for me, straight back to Italy where they seem to still value him as a player.
 
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Devil81 said:
He 100% worse than Weghorst, at least Wout working his socks off and gave his all during his time. This lad is clearly more talented but he is so lazy and half arsed it's almost like he's messing about in some sort of five aside game against lesser players. The shot yesterday was also bizarre, Alan Smith said it on the commentary, there was no conviction in the shot. He just kind of lofted it over the bar.

Get him gone in January for me, straight back to Italy where they seem to still value him as a player.
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I don't know if it's him being lazy or just that he's so unfit he physically can't keep up with the pace.

He looks like a big lump, he can barely run or move.

You can never fully write a player off this early into their Utd career, we've had other players start off badly that went on to be brilliant like Evra and even Onana now looks miles better than he did at first. But it's hard to see Zirkzee working out here. He looks absolutely fecking awful
 
Id have Weghorst over this sham.

I am fully writing him off- he will never be a consistent starter for United and he will be hopefully gone as soon as possible
 
Watched how he moves off the ball. It's all so half-hearted. He doesn't want the ball because he doesn't believe in himself. The alarm bells are ringing. He's got zero confidence. On the sideline, before he came on you could see Amorim trying to fire him up. He certainly didn't give the new manager what he wanted to see.
Not buying the views of some posters saying that its too soon or he's playing out of position or he'll come good etc etc. Unfortunately he hasn't got the mentality nor the ability to play in the PL. A lost cause!
 
He just doesn’t look like the player he was talked up to be. Will he suddenly get quicker and be technically better in time?

One of the strangest signings we’ve made in the last ten years.
 
JB08 said:
If you’re judging purely off game time vs goals then he is performing exactly the same as Hojlund, and better than Gakpo, Calvert-Lewin, Antonio and a bunch of other wide forwards so a bit dramatic.
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I'd take every single one of them over Zirkzee.
 
My lasting memory of this appearance of his will be Amorim hammering it into him before the sub to seemingly press and play with intensity, only to see him do the opposite once on.
 
In his first couple of appearances I thought he showed some nice turns and layoffs demonstrating nice intelligence and technical ability. Unfortunately it looks like he lacks the confidence and the mental strength to demonstrate his ability in a game at this level, further physically he doesn't look up to it at all and the reality of the modern PL is that you are either an extraoridinarily gifted technician or you need to have the physical attributes to compete.
 
Must be out the door soon. How can we sign a player with 0 intensity... just always looks like he cant run.

He is always late to the ball, pressing is poor, how was he ever rated highly?
 
VP89 said:
You're cherry picking facets of his game. Do you think he was not integral to a successful stint in Bologna? Was he not highly rated by a top coach? Do you think these things generally happen if payers aren't good?
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Yes, plenty of average players can have good seasons. It happens all the time. It’s also much easier to look good in Italy than it is in England. Especially for a player with such obvious physical deficiencies as Zirkzee. And respectfully we’re talking about a Bologna side who finished 5th in Serie A. It’s a world away from playing, and being good enough, for Manchester United. And if that top coach that you mentioned rated him that highly, he would have taken him to Juventus with him.

Currently the likes Moises Kean, Adama Lookman & Christian Pulicic are amongst the top scorers in Italy right now, would you call any of them good enough for United?
 
Looking that poor against a bottom 3 side is extremely alarming. Playing like that he wouldnt get in the Ipswich team
 
His lack of pace is really worrying , you can fix other parts of his game , you can't fix pace.

At first I thought it was just his body shape that made him look slower than he actually was as I thought surely that is something that would be red flagged in any scout report. But he is clearly looks a couple of yards short of would be considered acceptable in the premier league.

Maybe it is his current fitness levels as reports were that ETH was very unhappy with out of shape he was when he turned up at Utd , either way it is not a good sign.

Will wait to pass final judgement on him when Amorim has him for a few weeks/months to see if he can get a tune out of him.
 
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Malone_Post said:
Yes, plenty of average players can have good seasons. It happens all the time. It’s also much easier to look good in Italy than it is in England. Especially for a player with such obvious physical deficiencies as Zirkzee. And respectfully we’re talking about a Bologna side who finished 5th in Serie A. It’s a world away from playing, and being good enough, for Manchester United. And if that top coach that you mentioned rated him that highly, he would have taken him to Juventus with him.

Currently the likes Moises Kean, Adama Lookman & Christian Pulicic are amongst the top scorers in Italy right now, would you call any of them good enough for United?
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You seem focused too much on goals as a metric of success for a player like Zirkzee. There are qualities in his game that suit the PL and he's not physically lacking. I don't think he's inherently a slow player, he's just low on confidence and trying to find his spot in the squad.

I'm not defending him as some sure success but just pointing out it's too early to completely rule him out.
 
Malone_Post said:
Yes, plenty of average players can have good seasons. It happens all the time. It’s also much easier to look good in Italy than it is in England. Especially for a player with such obvious physical deficiencies as Zirkzee. And respectfully we’re talking about a Bologna side who finished 5th in Serie A. It’s a world away from playing, and being good enough, for Manchester United. And if that top coach that you mentioned rated him that highly, he would have taken him to Juventus with him.

Currently the likes Moises Kean, Adama Lookman & Christian Pulicic are amongst the top scorers in Italy right now, would you call any of them good enough for United?
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I'm very sceptical of Italian one season wonders since Krzysztof Piatek. He scored 19 in his first 21 games for Genoa only to move to Milan and completely disappear there.
 
Betson said:
His lack of pace is really worrying , you can fix other parts of his game , you can't fix pace.

At first I thought it was just his body shape that made him look slower than he actually was as I thought surely that is something that would be red flagged in any scout report. But he is clearly looks a couple of yards short of would be considered acceptable in the premier league.

Maybe it is his current fitness levels as reports were that ETH was very unhappy with out of shape he was when he turned up at Utd , either way it is not a good sign.

Will wait to pass final judgement on him when Amorim has him for a few weeks/months to see if he can get a tune out of him.
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He's a football manager, not a magician.

Zirkzee is appalling, at least so far, and he's one of only a few players where you can clearly see immediately that he's not good enough.
 
I understand that Zirkzee was praised for his holdup play, but we really needed a striker who can score goals, given that Rasmus does not appear to be much of a goal scorer himself. Very strange that we signed two strikers who are not prolific goal scorers. So here we are now, in search of a goal scoring striker.
 
When I made Fellaini comparisons the forum went mad and I was told he's like Berbatov. Looking back, it was an insult to Fellaini.
 
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lex talionis said:
I understand that Zirkzee was praised for his holdup play, but we really needed a striker who can score goals, given that Rasmus does not appear to be much of a goal scorer himself. Very strange that we signed two strikers who are not prolific goal scorers. So here we are now, in search of a goal scoring striker.
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Even if he isn't that, you'd think he would at least offer quality on the ball but even that doesn't show.
 
Zirkzee is delivering Bebe level performances, on a consistent basis. The only difference being that Bebe was actually significantly faster
 
It's kind of amazing how well we've replaced end stage Martial. It's almost exactly the same player.
 
All the signs were there when Weghorst was starting ahead of him for Holland
 
It's mental that we've somehow managed to buy 2 strikers that can't score goals. £100m+ wasted. Why are our scouts so useless??? Would have taken the average football fan a couple of viewings of these 2 to realise they are not good enough.

Shockingly bad transfers
 
Scottynaldinho said:
When I made Fellaini comparisons the forum went mad and I was told he's like Berbatov. Looking back, it's was an insult to Fellaini.
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Ive been saying the same. Its not just his hair, his whole body shape, intensity on the ball, movements off the ball.... he is literally a Fellaini regen. At this point..... I prefer Fellaini, and he was tragic.
 
Its weird looking at the videos at how he was just a few months ago and now at United:




I really thought he could be a difference-maker before we signed him.
 
It's currently looking like we've gone and signed the CF version of VDB.

I thought the new backroom staff were supposed to be best in the world. So far, they appear to be even more clueless than the previous regime.
 
Are we sure nothing happened to the real Zirkzee and they've just thrown Tom Huddlestone in there and hoped nobody would notice?
 
I remember back in the summer before he signed there was a report in the Italian media that he preferred to stay in Italy. His move to Milan ended up falling through because of the agent's demands. Since arriving here we've seen links to Juve already.

Could all be a load of rubbish but if he wasn't overly keen on coming here and has an eye on returning so soon it might well explain why he just doesn't look up to it.
 
Malone_Post said:
Yes, plenty of average players can have good seasons. It happens all the time. It’s also much easier to look good in Italy than it is in England. Especially for a player with such obvious physical deficiencies as Zirkzee. And respectfully we’re talking about a Bologna side who finished 5th in Serie A. It’s a world away from playing, and being good enough, for Manchester United. And if that top coach that you mentioned rated him that highly, he would have taken him to Juventus with him.

Currently the likes Moises Kean, Adama Lookman & Christian Pulicic are amongst the top scorers in Italy right now, would you call any of them good enough for United?
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I agree with much of what you said, but just a matter of fact Juve and Milan did want him. United paid a little over the release clause so they could pay it over a longer period of time.
 
another clueless signing from eth. A knock on effect to eth’s own tactical cluelessness. He basically saw him as ‘something different’, a different kind of striker that he could bring on to maybe hopefully possibly change something.
 
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