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This summer saw Manchester United spend £200 million in transfers for Erik ten Hag to redesign his squad, with it now revealed that the Dutchman actually didn’t want to sign one of them.
The summer transfer window marked Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s first window with United after claiming that it could take three years of transfers to build a team to routinely fight for titles.
That said, The Red Devils completely remodelled their defence by signing Matthijs de Ligt, Noussair Mazraoui and Leny Yoro. Whilst Yoro has been injured since the pre-season, de Ligt and Mazraoui have already established themselves as key members of United’s starting XI.
To round off the summer signings, United also bought Manuel Ugarte in midfield and Joshua Zirkzee in attack.
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However, it’s now revealed that ten Hag wasn’t keen on signing one of the five, with the player arriving at Old Trafford out of shape.
Erik ten Hag didn’t want Joshua Zirkzee
The report from The Sun claims that the £36.5 million move for Joshua Zirkzee was actually done against ten Hag’s wishes.
This was only made worse by the fact that Zirkzee arrived a stone overweight, which he has taken time to lose.
It’s understood that his signing was instigated by the INEOS-led management team, who believed the Dutch striker was good value for money.
However, this is now up for debate, with his debut goal against Fulham being the only time he’s hit the back of the net all season in 15 appearances. Alongside this, Zirkzee has only registered two assists so far, giving him a total of three-goal contributions.
This could be put down to settling into the new squad as well as his unexpected fitness levels on arrival in Manchester, however, he is also only averaging 45 minutes per game played, despite seven starts.
Now, with Rasmus Hojlund back from injury, the 23-year-old has been receiving limited game time, however, the Denmark international hasn’t registered much better with only two goals in ten games, with no assists, averaging the same amount of goal contributions per game.
Time will tell if Zirkzee can put the work in and establish himself as a good signing, however, it now appears that Erik ten Hag was dubious from the start.
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