Roma\u2019s reported pursuit of Giacomo Raspadori and the sudden change of management at Manchester United have increased the chances Joshua Zirkzee stays at Old Trafford this month. The 24-year-old forward struggled for game time in the first half of the season and had been widely tipped to move to find the consistent minutes required to push for a place in the Netherlands squad ahead of the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n
Roma director Ricky Massara admitted the club\u2019s interest in Zirkzee cooled after United\u2019s managerial change. \u201c[Zirkzee] is a\u00a0Manchester United \u00a0centre forward liked by many clubs, not just us,\u201d Massara told Sky Sport Italia earlier this week.\u00a0\u201cNaturally, the situation is different after this change of management, there are no contacts in progress, but I wouldn\u2019t focus on individual names.\u201d He added: \u201cIt\u2019s true there are negotiations in progress with both\u00a0Atl\u00e9tico Madrid\u00a0and Raspadori.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sky Sport Italia subsequently reported Roma have quickly reached agreement with Atl\u00e9tico to sign Raspadori on loan with an option to buy. The move requires the player\u2019s acceptance, and any pursuit of Zirkzee would be abandoned if the Raspadori deal proceeds.<\/p>\n
Zirkzee\u2019s involvement for United has risen since the November international break, after barely featuring in the first three months of the season. He was called upon by Darren Fletcher in the first game after Amorim\u2019s sudden departure and has played some part in each of the last 10 Premier League fixtures, registering direct goal involvements in two of the last three. He is still typically used from the bench.<\/p>\n
Another factor working against an immediate exit is the expectation no new signings will be made in January. Amorim made the club\u2019s stance clear in December and his departure has not altered that position: \u201cIt\u2019s going to be hard for someone to leave the club if we don\u2019t get a substitution. We are short. Even with the full squad, we are short for something that can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
United were believed to have been keen on Antoine Semenyo because of his \u00a365 million release clause, but after the goalscoring winger chose Manchester City the Red Devils withdrew and decided against spending on an alternative. Funds are intended to be held for the summer window, when a central midfielder is the priority target.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Roma’s Raspadori move and Amorim’s exit leave Zirkzee more likely to stay at Manchester United. 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5853,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1125,1163],"tags":[1021,1304,1087],"class_list":["post-5854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united","category-strikers","category-transfers","tag-amorim","tag-benching","tag-coaching-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5854","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=5854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}