He obviously has a lot of problems, but if Garnacho finishes that chance we're talking about a great assist to win us the game, so I wouldn't say he has no impact. Fine margins.
11
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 48
- Goals
- 7
- Assists
- 2
- Yellow cards
- 2
Put him in a low intensity training session and he probably looks okay; decent touch from time to time etc. Raise the tempo + physicality and he no doubt looks out of his depth. Doesn’t have the speed of thought or feet, nor the strength to make an impact.
Feel free to post the stats.
Got this from sofascore, but still..
Ground duels (won): 23(5)
Aerial duels (won): 9(2)
Is that based on one game?
That's from the Fulham match
Probably many different stats sites - fotmob:
Ground duels - 5/23 - 22%
Aerial duels - 2/9 - 22%
That is extremely poor, especially for a man his size. He also only had 1 succesful dribble. Zero shots on target.
Passing 28/38 passes completed, 74%
xg+xa 0,36
How anyone thinks this is a great display is beyond me. He does some useful things only to lose awareness or make a rubbish pass to end an otherwise promising piece of play.
This season:
On average, he wins 30,9% of ground duels and 30,2% of aerial duels - that's again quite terrible. Bruno wins 49,2% of ground duels and 40,5% of aerial duels. The size difference is quite massive, so Zirkzee just isn't using his frame to his advantage.
Normally, I don't care too much about stats, but they do confirm the eye-test - he loses the ball too much, his passing is erratic, and he isn't creative.
Is it okay I want to keep players I enjoy watching?
After all football is an entertainment and a hobby to me. Players like Zirkzee and Garnacho are still players I find enjoyable to watch.
After all football is an entertainment and a hobby to me. Players like Zirkzee and Garnacho are still players I find enjoyable to watch.
Just absolutely bodied Max Dowman on insta, apparently 
Again, he looks better now than when he arrived. The speed of the league takes time to get used too.
Let’s not bury the guy just yet!
Let’s not bury the guy just yet!
Absolute nonsense.
He should be making an impact if hes any good after a few games - maybe a year to become the main man, which this lad will never be.
Haha gotta admire your complete absence of any patience whatsoever! bravo @McGrathsipan
Do you think its acceptable for a supposed elite level player to take a year to produce a performance?
Thats quite something. Lets say for the sake of the debate the player has 10 years at the elite level - you expect to allow 10% of that as settling in time?
I haven't seen anything from him that suggests he will ever be the main man at Man Utd, so I am willing to suggest now he wont ever be.
Nothing to do with lack of patience.
He is new to the league, relatively young (23yrs) and didn't cost much either (£35M) so personally I never expected him to be the main man and as such I still have loads of patience for him.
His minutes add up to around 19 games for the club, in a season where the manager has changed mid-season and everyone else around him is struggling too.
So yeah we completely disagree.
He strikes me as a younger, more agile version of Weghorst. A big body capable of somewhat effective hold up play despite virtually no goal threat. Oh and he also comes from Holland heh.
I dunno, just supporting a new player and watching them grow, shocking as that might sound.
It's not unusual for player to improve with time...right?
If we are just going to kick every player into a pit Spartan style after a few months of bad performances then we are going to have one hell of a turnover in players.
Really not a fan of this kid.Just absolutely bodied Max Dowman on insta, apparently
He doesn’t have to be the main man though. He has to be a team player and that ain’t happening until we’re a functioning team. He showed some quality against Fulham and could have grabbed an assist if Garnacho has a better touch. We need more smarter players. Him and obi linked up quite well
He's on like 100k p/w and the wage level reflects his role in the squad. Don't take your frustration out on the guy. I like him -- improved his work rate and is getting used to the pace of the PL now. Rather him than a guy like Weghorst at the very least as a backup.
Maybe he'll improve and be a bit of a budget Berbatov. It'll be a useful tactical profile to have in the squad.
Maybe he'll improve and be a bit of a budget Berbatov. It'll be a useful tactical profile to have in the squad.
Apart from the mobility, completely different players. Zirkzee has better technical ability.
I’d love to see him play with quicker players around him. I’d also wouldn’t refuse if a club bought him from us. Good player but maybe the premier league is too quick for him.
Reckon he would do good with a well structured team however can we afford that remain to be seen.
I somewhat agree but if Garnacho finishes that chance, we’d be talking about one of the great assists of recent times from Zirkzee.
while he seems pleasing on the eye in the build up he actually offers very little, doesn't win any headers, gives the ball away constantly, can't shoot. Not bothered whether he stays or not long term.
would assume he only stays because we are already hella thin on attackers. I guess if you want to see hojlund go out he pretty much has to stay. Not really due to him being great or anything but just to save us from the embarrassment of what we have now-not even having full benches.
£105k is huge for what he currently brings to the club. Hojlund is on £85k and even thats 35k more than Garnacho on 50k. If we sold him now we'd most likely have to pay a portion of his wages just like with Rashford, Antony, etc.
I will always like this kind of player, guy is a baller ! We don’t make them anymore, with his flair, he is a bit of a fresh air in this boring era of robotic players and rigid systems. Football isn’t all that serious, it was meant to be entertaining !
Those two are special cases -- Garnacho if / when he renews will get a lot more. Hojlund was a young player and again paid an appropriate wage that reflects that he's not starter level for United immediately.
I don't think 100k p/w esp. for a striker is a lot but open to some amount of pushback based on data: https://www.spotrac.com/epl
e.g., Tomiyasu is on 100k p/w and Solanke is also on 100k p/w.
At the very least, it won't prove to be a stumbling block if we chose to sell him / loan him. Most PL clubs can pay that for a striker.
Most of them dont sign a striker who has 3 goals in 1146 mins and certainly wouldnt pay £100k wages for them. No chance.
Literally? In the last dozen of games?
He could have had 2 or 3 assists last game only if his teammates were more clinical. The pretty amazing pass on Garnacho the most obvious one
There are plenty of reasons to criticize him (which you also did). But might as well keep it factual
All-naption
Weghorst was better at linking play, although zero goal threat as you mentioned. Neither one are good enough and Zirkzee is a piece in a puzzle we aren’t trying to solve. Not afraid to says he’s never going to be good enough.
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He had 2 key passes same as Eriksen and De Ligt and 1 less than Dalot. Keep it factual
Not sure which part of what I said wasn’t correct
Also not sure what Dalot or anyone has to do with it when we’re discussing if Zirkzee offers a threat or not
But have it your way mate
You said he set up 2 or 3 assists. He had 2 key passes. So its 2. Not 3
And it was less than several teammates
Martial was better at basically everything apart from pressing, I guess. When we signed Zirkzee, I expected a slower Martial (from what tacticos were saying) but I think even Martial who couldn’t run post-Ole injury had better all round game than Zirkzee.
He was going to get close to that at Milan
https://milanreports.com/2024/06/09/a-yearly-4-5-salary-zirkzee-milan/
100k p/w is a pretty normal salary for a pro footballer in a top league. I predict he'd have done just fine there, the club is in chaos and we can't really attack or score goals, so there's no real point in throwing out stats.
Utter nonsense. There are those helping and those causing those problems. He was one of those causing us problems against Fulham, losing the ball all the time, 0 shots on target and then missing his penalty in the shootout
As for Milan I'm sure they'd offer less now with his record. And I think he'll do fine in Italy again although not sure he'll go to far above 5th with Bologna last year.
105k is more than any Bournemouth player, is 15k more than Chris Wood at Forest and equal to their highest earner Milenkovic. I doubt they'd want to match it for someone with a much poorer record than Chris Wood. Its higher than anyone at Brighton, Fulham have Jimenez on 100k and Leno on 130k but Jimenez is scoring and Zirkzee isnt so probably no interest. Villa like City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Newcastle and Spurs have plenty of players 105k or more but will have no interest in a striker that isnt scoring. I doubt there are that many takers if he halved it to 52.5k
I mean I don't know why you're angry at the guy but Betis are paying 85% of Antony's salary (200k p/w per capology).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...n-rest-season-200k-week-wages-LaLiga-pay.html (athletic also reported this, too lazy to look for the link)
Everyone knows United are in chaos and their current form isn't reflective of the player's ability to fit into a settled system. I'm also fairly certain that if we loaned out ZZ for whatever reason, people will happily pay 105k p/w for him. Loan deals are much cheaper and lower risk for clubs to execute than a full transfer. Age / potential is also on his side. If we have to sell him, then we'll be taking a bit of a haircut but that's somewhat expected for signings that don't work out.
I think the more productive thing is to make sure we're paying incoming players appropriate wages and everything said and done if a broke Italian club was ready to pay him 95k p/w, signing him for 105k p/w from the PL is not a significant overpay.
My position ultimately is that he's fine to have in a squad in a rotation / backup role and that's what I'd calibrate my expectations to when judging his performances.
Didnt even know PSG signed Khavavvrahavrhrhaahvatskelia.
Capology is wrong, and a pretty shit source to use for player wages. They will have basically used the Daily Mail as their source, so it's just a vicious circle of misinformation.
Whitwell at The Athletic reported that Antony is probably on closer to £120k pw. It's the only plausible reason why Betis could afford to pay 85% of his wages.