Joshua Zirkzee image 11

Joshua Zirkzee Netherlands flag

2025-26 Performances


View full 2025-26 profile

4.8 Season Average Rating
Appearances
20
Goals
2
Assists
1
Yellow cards
1
Tik tok fans who love a piece of control or nutmeg but don’t care about the next pass going wrong.

Agree completely. How many goals or assists does he bring to the table? Zero see! If we get any offers over 30m we need to jump on it.
 
Zirkzee has a strange history against Newcastle. He's played them four times. One was his worst ever starting performance. One was his best ever starting performance. One was probably his worst performance off the bench. And now this one was one of his best performances off the bench. There's just no mid-ground whatsoever when he faces them.
 
He is a very good squad player and would be good when we have more matches.
We need squad players as well when we get back to Europe.
 
I disagree. He's had good games here and brings something we sorely lack to the team when he's on the pitch. Problem is, Bruno is just better and I don't think he's a CF.
Completely disagree. I think he's been abysmal. He's technically very good, albeit inconsistently. He's a decent short passer, albeit inconsistently. He lacks any urgency; he has no intensity in his game. His workmate is well below par. He's slow. His stamina is below par. Surprisingly, he isn't very strong in physical duels.

He doesn't suit the PL at all.
 
If not for the fact we're already short on attackers and we need to overhaul midfield, I'd sell him without a second thought.
 
Completely disagree. I think he's been abysmal. He's technically very good, albeit inconsistently. He's a decent short passer, albeit inconsistently. He lacks any urgency; he has no intensity in his game. His workmate is well below par. He's slow. His stamina is below par. Surprisingly, he isn't very strong in physical duels.

He doesn't suit the PL at all.
This.

And he doesn't score goals.
 
He is a very good squad player and would be good when we have more matches.
We need squad players as well when we get back to Europe.




Completely disagree. I think he's been abysmal. He's technically very good, albeit inconsistently. He's a decent short passer, albeit inconsistently. He lacks any urgency; he has no intensity in his game. His workmate is well below par. He's slow. His stamina is below par. Surprisingly, he isn't very strong in physical duels.

He doesn't suit the PL at all.

This is spot on. People think coming on against 10 men and doing two flicks is enough to say some player is good and that he deserves squad place. He has two goals this season and it's start of march. He was close to scoring one goal maybe once in last month or so, and that was that good shot(that he doesn't normally produce) from last night, that is nowhere near good enough.

I want us to start him because he's one of our better players under pressure and in tight spaces but I don't see how he fits in.

Bruno has 10 locked down. Sesko deserves a run now. Amad should be our RW. The only position up for grabs is on the left but I don't know if that would suit him.

He is one of our better players under pressure two times per game game, except the extended periods of game where he is invisible and can't get anyhwere near the ball because he lacks and intensity and pace. Just because he does it twice per game doesn't mean he is generally good at it.

He is statistically one of the worst passers in the team, his stats of losing the ball and poor touches are almost the worst in the team. That's not entirely because his technique is bad, but because players like him who are generally very slow to cope with the pace and lose any 50-50% passes that their teammates pass to them to poor touch because the opposition get them easily.
 
Zirkzee reminds me a bit of Depay - in the sense that he really struggled to adapt to the EPL, but can be useful in the right league (& setup), IMO. I’m sure at a level like the Europa league, Zirkzee would also show he’s half decent, as I recall Depay doing for us.

I think he also needs to be at a club with less pressure.
 


Noises coming out in the last few days that he's eager to stay next season. The fact that he's featuring heavily in club media adds to that imo.

Mitten mentioned he's one of the hardest trainers, a glue in the dressing room between different groups and sees this season (not playing much) as a year to build and improve instead of seeing it as a year of stagnation.

Now Nathan Salt has said similar in his column today:

I had an interesting conversation in the past week around the future of Zirkzee at United.

The word now is that Zirkzee is eager to stay at United and firmly believes he will get chances under Michael Carrick once the club return to European football.

Sources close to the player are not convinced that United will bolster their attack in this coming off-season and with more games added to the schedule, Zirkzee believes Carrick will give him more opportunities to play.

He is particularly close with Patrick Dorgu and Mainoo and while there are teams in Italy who are keen - and were in January - this is not a player pushing to leave, which gives United a decision to make.

My information is that Zirkzee is determined to stay and make an impact next season.
 
I wouldn’t mind him staying at all.

Selling him means we need to bring someone in, and unless we can get WelBack on a free I don’t see it being worthwhile.

It’ll be really hard to find someone better or equal for a fee that doesn’t stress our budget.

We bought a project, maybe we should try seeing it out for once. Can’t hurt his value either playing a few games.
 
United could easily have an extra 10 games in the CL next season, which does open the door for someone like Zirkzee.

United would probably keep him, but can see why he would want to move on.
 
Unless we can get good money, and more importantly use that to replace him, I'd keep him. He's not good enough, but we're thin up front as it is and have about 5 other urgent areas to reinforce first
 
I like variety in the squad and I still see him having the potential to be what he is good at -

A very good false 9.

He was never bought to be a 20 goal a season striker, we bought him after he scored 13 goals for Bologna with many actually being penalties.

However, he has the ability to drop deep and make everyone else around him play better. It's very nice to watch.

He is actually like Mainoo playing as a forward. People complain of lack of passing or defence but he kind of keeps the ball ticking for the rest of the team.

Would people want 2 Seskos in the squad - both sharing the same Strengths and weaknesses where we bring on Sesko Beta when Sesko Alpha is not working?

However, with Sesko we have a good target man, Mbeumo seems like he can be a type of striker that gets in behind and play on the counter and Zirkzee can be the false 9 who tries to get the best out of more wider goalscorers.
I thought Cunha should have been able to play Zirkzee role in the team which then leads to selling Zirkzee but Cunha has been worse than Zirkzee playing in that position. Almost invisible in games where it seems like it should be a position he is really good at playing.

We have heard it all before - he has an unusual fan group for someone who has been underwhelming - but that fan group is there for a reason; not because he seems like a cool dude with cool hair - it's because when he comes on the pitch the team starts to play very differently.

However, just because the team plays differently does not necessarily mean the team plays better.

Realistically our next manager is going tko be between Carrick & Nagelsmann. Both managers & their coaches are very keen on playing players closer together which opens space for each other. Zirkzee could be good for a manager that wants to play that way but Carrick seems to be a manager who doesn't want to fix something that's not broken whilst Nagelsmann is the complete opposite, changing tactics throughout a season.
 
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Has had 2 seasons here and has never looked anywhere near the quality to even be on the bench. One of the arguments for Omar Berrada coming in was that he was part of a City regime who moved players on quickly if they weren't cutting it. Zirkzee should be moved on this summer and replaced.
 
Has had 2 seasons here and has never looked anywhere near the quality to even be on the bench. One of the arguments for Omar Berrada coming in was that he was part of a City regime who moved players on quickly if they weren't cutting it. Zirkzee should be moved on this summer and replaced.

From what I've seen in his last few appearances off the bench is that he's been terribly unlucky not to score a handful of goals. I reckon had he taken those chances the conversation around him right now would be a little different.

I still think he has a part to play in this team and I've not given up on Joshua.
 
From what I've seen in his last few appearances off the bench is that he's been terribly unlucky not to score a handful of goals. I reckon had he taken those chances the conversation around him right now would be a little different.

I still think he has a part to play in this team and I've not given up on Joshua.
Do t think he’s been unlucky. He should have done better. He’s very laboured, and doesn’t have the urgency needed.

Even if he banged in a couple of goals, he’s consistently shown he’s not good enough.

He has no business being at United, and has to be sold in the summer.
 
Replacing with Welbeck if possible is a no brainer for me. Strikers need to score goals and we have enough number 10s in the squad. If we can get £10 to £15 million for Zirkzee I would move on.
 
Rather play Obi then Zirkzee. Get rid. We cannot afford to be carrying passengers. Wouldn't trust him playing in the league cup let alone champions league or league. He's had his chance imo.
 
Do t think he’s been unlucky. He should have done better. He’s very laboured, and doesn’t have the urgency needed.

Even if he banged in a couple of goals, he’s consistently shown he’s not good enough.

He has no business being at United, and has to be sold in the summer.

I hear you, he hasn’t been clinical enough and the numbers don't lie.

But I still think there’s a bit of context he’s come off the bench a lot and still managed to get into good positions. For me that counts for something. If a couple of those chances go in, the narrative probably shifts quite a bit.

Also, we might be tight on funds this summer and need to prioritise midfield. If he can kick on and chip in with a few goals off the bench, that’s money saved and we can always reassess the summer after.
 
To this day I'm genuinely baffled as to why we signed him? What could we have possibly seen that we decided yup, he's going to make a difference to the team?
 
I don't hate him but I don't rate him either. However people who rate him seems to always bring up his "nice touches", isn't that like... basic?
From a CF you want goals and a presence near the box. Zirkzee is neither of those. If he was involved in a nice 10 seconds sequence of plays but it ended up into nothing then it's still... nothing.
 
To this day I'm genuinely baffled as to why we signed him? What could we have possibly seen that we decided yup, he's going to make a difference to the team?
I think the club saw Rashford and Garnacho always taking shots, Hojlund's poor linkup play and naively thought Zirkzee would knit it all together to help Garnacho kick on and Rashford return to scoring 30 goals a season.
 
He’s nowhere near good enough for us but it appears he’s the “glue guy” in the squad, hugely popular. We should still look to sell if we get a half decent fee.
 
He barely runs around because he’s so slow and languid, 200mph off the pace meaning he never actually gets near the ball or the opponent with the ball because they’ve gotten to it first.

Most of the time he looks like he’s won a charity run out with the squad but isn’t actually allowed to touch the ball or do anything of substance for legal reasons.

I absolutely do not get anyone saying they’d be happy to have him stay. In a slower league I’m sure he gets on the ball and shows quality but he’s just miles off being a Premier League player.
 
To this day I'm genuinely baffled as to why we signed him? What could we have possibly seen that we decided yup, he's going to make a difference to the team?
Utterly baffling.
Can only imagine in Italy with more space and lower intensity he looked such a ball playing wizard we thought he'd develop into a sensational second forward.

We'll surely do well to get anything better than a loan with a possible buy price of £15m
 
Replacing with Welbeck if possible is a no brainer for me. Strikers need to score goals and we have enough number 10s in the squad. If we can get £10 to £15 million for Zirkzee I would move on.
Danny is very settled in Brighton and has very recently signed a new contract. He'd be a better fit in playing style, but that ship has sailed a long time ago...
 
2 goals! 2! And a whopping 1 assist. What the hell are we even talking about? Give his minutes to a youth team player if we can’t afford to bring anyone in. I don’t care how many fancy stopovers he can do in the 75 minute. I’d call him a poor man’s Fellaini but that’s disrespectful to Fellaini. He’s utterly useless.