Joshua Zirkzee could solve all of Man United’s striker problems | OneFootball

It’s pretty clear by now, over a month into the summer transfer window, that Ruben Amorim is not going to be handed a blank slate and a crack team of 3-4-2-1 black ops to address the outright failure that last season quickly became.

So, like a finance bro with a Rumi audiobook, the Manchester United squad must park its rampant toxicity and look inside itself for answers. And there, finger guns at the ready, is Joshua Zirkzee, a man born to complete a redemption arc.

A puzzling piece

Ever since his arrival from Bologna, and well before that for the truly dedicated YouTube trawlers, the 24-year-old has been a headscratcher. Fourteen goals in 58 games for the Italian side persuaded United to part with £36.5m, only for him to score half that amount in almost as many games (49) for the Old Trafford outfit.

This, at a time when the club’s attack was spearheaded solely by Rasmus Hojlund, a rudderless youngster struggling to shoulder a task which should never have been his. That the Red Devils opted for a certified enigma with fewer than 40 senior career goals specifically to address their light-touch approach to finding the back of the net seemed surprising at the time, then another dreadful transfer misstep.

But now it has taken on a twisted kind of madcap genius. Moving over a year in advance for an ideal foil for a couple of signings yet to be made for a manager still blissfully unaware that he was set for the Old Trafford meatgrinder is, quite frankly, remarkable. The alternative explanation, that this is pure coincidence after weeks of blindly thrashing around Europe’s top five leagues, is simply too far-fetched for words.

No ‘I’ in team

Zirkzee is not, and probably never will be, a reliable source of goals himself. And, to get statistical about it, is also not really a serial creator, managing 26 assists in 171 top-flight games.

And yet, and yet. There’s something in his deft flicks, his low-stress effort, that fits so elegantly alongside the likes of the bombastic Bruno Fernandes, the blunt object Hojlund, the frantic overlapping of Patrick Dorgu. Specifically, it could be the secret sauce to fully unlock Amorim’s new-look number 10s, Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo.

Away from spreadsheets the eye test counts for a lot, and Zirkzee’s contributions go beyond data points; to quantify his dexterity as a pre-assist is to shatter one of the theatre’s few remaining dreams.

Thus, with the likelihood of a marquee striker fading into the middle distance and Hojlund’s form in the kind of lead-lined casket which feels likely to make the trip from last season to next fully intact, Zirkzee should be given a solid run at centre-forward. This seems to be a view shared by many figures at the club.

Not just a wildcard

It would be wrong to simply cast Zirkzee as a novelty item, a throwback to when football was fun and creative rather than just 22 robots seeing who can lose possession the least.

He is a player with good movement, the ability to pick an incisive pass and to confound defenders – rumour has it William Saliba is still haunted by him in the small hours when he can’t get to sleep. Not for nothing has the Dutchman been compared to United legend Dimitar Berbatov, the living, breathing embodiment of what it is to be mercurial.

It would, however, also be wrong to see him as an out-and-out striker and the more you try to force him into that box the less effective he will be. The self-styled “9.5” thrives in a deeper role, several paces back from the traditional striker’s berth. His talents lie in stitching play together and being overlapped, skills which promise to be significant in Amorim’s second draft of a United team created in his image.

In Cunha and Mbeumo, United will have two 10s far better equipped to make the kind of runs Zirkzee naturally wants to find, and with wing-backs bombing on too there should be ample opportunity for a deep-lying creative striker to shape goals if not score them himself.

Amorim’s two attacking reinforcements managed 35 Premier League goals between them last season, and if Zirkzee can help them do the same again while chipping in with a handful himself he more than answers the call as an effective – if not personally prolific – solution to United’s goalscoring crisis.

A key component

Consider, too, the surprisingly deep loss United felt when the player was sidelined in April for the rest of the season, both on the pitch and in the stands.

By this point Zirkzee had shown mental fortitude to bounce back from abject form and a hostile crowd to become an exhilarating and increasingly important player. When removed from an ailing attack his absence made the team worse rather than continuing its perpetual underproduction. The bar was excruciatingly low, but this was an undeniable show of progress during an unforgiving season which for some time seemed to have chewed him up and was preparing to spit him out come the summer.

Rumours of a return to Serie A blossomed in the run-up to the transfer window then tailed off, and despite the need for funds at Old Trafford the hope will surely now be that Atalanta’s recent interest amounts to nothing.

With his side struggling for reinforcements, it’s worth seriously considering whether the striker they needed was their 9.5 the whole time.

Featured image Ion Alcoba Beitia via Getty Images

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