Why Joshua Zirkzee is yet to appear for Manchester United

Joshua Zirkzee is likely to start on the bench for Manchester United‘s Premier League 2024-25 opener against Fulham. The 23-year-old striker joined United from Bologna in a £36.5 million in the current transfer window. However, he only began training with the team last Wednesday after his new teammates returned from the pre-season tour.

The Netherlands international had limited playing time in the European Championship and spent his holiday in Los Angeles, where United was also based during the pre-season. Although he was close to the touring squad, he was instructed to report to the Carrington training complex on July 29 and primarily worked with former coach Steve McClaren until his teammates arrived.

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Ten Hag on Zirkzee

In last week’s Community Shield match against Manchester City, Zirkzee was an unused substitute, despite being United’s only senior striker at the moment as Rasmus Hojlund remains out with a hamstring strain and is expected to be sidelined until September. United, however, faltered a chance of winning silverware at the start of the season after a 7-6 loss on penalties following a 1-1 tied scoreline in regulation time.

Speaking on Zirkzee’s situation, United boss Ten Hag stated, “I think he is close, so that is one of the complications. We don’t have a pre-season with him so we need games to bring him. If you see his background, in the last months he had an injury with Bologna. In the end, he made the selection for the Netherlands, so that helped him out of our first few weeks of pre-season. So no games – that is his problem in this moment. But now it is his third week in training, you see him stepping up, his fitness levels are improving and he needs more minutes and we can’t do it in a friendly, it has to go into the league,”