Joshua Zirkzee has no intention of leaving Manchester United in January and is focused on fighting for more regular minutes at Old Trafford. He started and completed 90 minutes against Everton, scored in United\u2019s 2\u20131 comeback win over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park and was selected for a third straight start against West Ham United.<\/p>\n
The forward was pushed back to the bench when Matheus Cunha returned from an enforced layoff for Monday\u2019s convincing win over Wolverhampton Wanderers. With Bryan Mbeumo and Amad Diallo due to depart for AFCON duty, Cunha could occupy a withdrawn role that would allow Zirkzee to start up front while \u0160e\u0161ko continues his return to fitness.<\/p>\n
Amid links to Serie A side Roma, Sky Sports News report that Zirkzee isn\u2019t looking to head back to Italy, where he first caught the attention of United after an impressive year at Bologna. Instead he is determined to force his way into Ruben Amorim\u2019s plans more often. There is also a suggestion his lack of regular minutes since arriving in the summer of 2024 may have cost him a place in the Netherlands\u2019 squad for the upcoming 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n
Since his \u00a336.5 million transfer Zirkzee has featured 58 times for United across all competitions, scoring eight goals and accumulating 2,610 minutes of action. That total is the equivalent of 29 full matches.<\/p>\n
There has been talk of Zirkzee and teammate Kobbie Mainoo potentially leaving in January, but speculation has been greater around potential arrivals, particularly in central midfield. An injury to Bruno Fernandes or Casemiro would leave the club light on personnel. Brighton & Hove Albion\u2019s Carlos Baleba is one reported target; United made tentative enquiries in the summer but Brighton\u2019s \u00a3100 million valuation prevented a deal from happening. It remains possible United could revisit interest in the summer transfer window.<\/p>\n
Baleba has addressed the links and the pressure they brought. \u201cI don\u2019t think it affected me,” Baleba told Sky Sports News when asked if United\u2019s interest had ruffled his feathers. “But I had a lot of pressure on me. When I started the season, I wanted to [have] the same performances as last season.<\/p>\n
“Every day I try to work hard and to get [back] to my level. Did I put too much pressure on myself? Yes, I think so, but I think that\u2019s good.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good for me because now I need to pass this time of pressure and I need to get up and continue to work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zirkzee will stay at Manchester United in January, aiming to win more regular minutes for club. soon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1083,1163],"tags":[538,1305,215],"class_list":["post-5058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-man-utd","category-transfers","tag-amad-diallo","tag-bench-selection","tag-carlos-baleba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058","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=5058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}