Joshua Zirkzee\u2019s recent run has reshaped what looked like an inevitable January exit into a short-term revival, but Manchester United still lack a dependable long-term scorer. Ruben Amorim delayed Zirkzee\u2019s chance earlier this season, yet in the space of a week the Dutch forward trebled his minutes for the campaign across two matches and made a clear impact.<\/p>\n
After 90 minutes at Old Trafford, in which Zirkzee was only denied two late goals by Jordan Pickford\u2019s heroics in the Everton goal, one likely the best save you\u2019ll see in the Premier League this season, he kept his place for the trip to Crystal Palace and completed another full 90. He went close against Everton and then produced a clinical equaliser against Palace, marking it with the \u2018machine gun\u2019 celebration borrowed from Gabriel Batistuta in a Premier League setting for the first time in a full year minus one day.<\/p>\n
Zirkzee told TNT Sports afterwards that being a Manchester United player means \u201cyou have to perform,\u201d and he acknowledged the difficulty of a prolonged drought: \u201cIf you don\u2019t score for a long time, it can get to you, but I\u2019m surrounded by great players, great people, and we help each other every day. They made it quite easy for me.\u201d He added: “[The goal] was just a reward I think for patience, hard work, trying to be consistent, and I\u2019m just thankful to them, the manager as well, staff, everyone. [It\u2019s] a good environment.” The draft records that he was jeered by his own fans at a particularly low moment last December.<\/p>\n
Statistically United have no player with three consecutive Premier League games with goals this season. Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko, Bryan Mbeumo and Casemiro are the only United players to score in back-to-back Premier League games this term. Zirkzee\u2019s brace against Everton in Amorim\u2019s first home Premier League game on December 1, 2024, suggested a catalyst, yet he did not score domestically again until this past weekend.<\/p>\n
With \u0160e\u0161ko potentially sidelined until the middle of December, the chance sits before Zirkzee, but United must still pursue another forward to complement \u0160e\u0161ko long-term. Zirkzee, 24, has one prolific season on his record, 16 in 38 in the Belgian Pro League with Anderlecht, and joined after scoring 11 in 34 for Bologna. Those returns explain why United cannot rely solely on this late uptick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zirkzee has reignited his United career, across two games, but United still lack a reliable striker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,1125],"tags":[317,260,939],"class_list":["post-4827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-strikers","tag-benjamin-sesko","tag-bryan-mbeumo","tag-casemiro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}