Frederic Massara has reiterated that Manchester United will not sanction Joshua Zirkzee’s departure this month, even after the striker missed Michael Carrick’s first match and remained out of the squad.<\/p>\n
Zirkzee was handed three consecutive starts by Ruben Amorim late in the autumn following an injury to Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko. He scored during that short run, ending a Premier League goal drought that had lasted 364 days, yet was dropped again soon afterwards.<\/p>\n
In the wake of Amorim’s exit, Massara said United had \u201cclosed off\u201d all transfer discussions until the club found greater stability. That position appears unchanged following Carrick’s arrival on a contract until the end of the season. When asked about Roma’s interest this weekend Massara was unequivocal: \u201cMan Utd said no quite clearly a couple of weeks ago and they have not changed their minds,\u201d as quoted by BBC Sport\u2019s Simon Stone.<\/p>\n
Zirkzee did not feature in Carrick’s second debut in the Old Trafford dugout, watching from the bench as his teammates recorded a 2\u20130 victory against Manchester City. Carrick elected to play without a recognised forward, using Bryan Mbeumo centrally to exploit his pace and versatility, but the club insisted Zirkzee’s omission was not a loss of faith.<\/p>\n
United confirmed before kick-off that the Netherlands international had picked up a knock in training. The player was filmed after the match telling fans he would be out for a fortnight, a period that covers the remainder of the January transfer window.<\/p>\n
Multiple reports have stressed that Carrick will not be handed new recruits in January. That stance is the principal reason players such as Zirkzee have seen their immediate transfer options curtailed for at least six months: United’s squad is not in a position to be reduced.<\/p>\n
Carrick has emphasised the route from academy to the first team, adding: \u201cEveryone needs a chance, you know. Every younger player needs a chance and wants a chance. It\u2019s up to them to then earn the opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s always something I\u2019ve been passionate about. Even when I was playing, if a younger player comes into the group, into the squad, I would be helping them and trying to guide them and give them advice. Seeing them flourish and almost fly because they\u2019ve got that feeling they play for the first team and they\u2019ve got that opportunity to come on the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United stand firm: they will not sanction Joshua Zirkzee’s departure during January window. No deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1348,1163],"tags":[983,1304,1087],"class_list":["post-6092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-united-news","category-transfers","tag-agents","tag-benching","tag-coaching-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092","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=6092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}