Former Manchester United star raises concern about one summer signing

Former Manchester United striker Michael Owen has raised one concern about the state of Erik ten Hag’s squad going into the new season, following the addition of Joshua Zirkzee in this summer’s transfer window.

Owen is seemingly not entirely convinced that the addition of Zirkzee does that much to improve the state of the Man Utd attack, with there still being a lack of an out-and-out proven goal-scorer in the side as they’ve had in the past.

The pundit discussed past star players such as Ruud van Nistelrooy, Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie as the kind of centre-forwards the Red Devils need, with Zirkzee perhaps unlikely to be in that category just yet.

The talented young Dutchman recently joined United from Bologna after impressing in Serie A, but it remains to be seen if he’ll live up to his potential or if he’ll be able to make much of an impact in the Premier League straight away.

Rasmus Hojlund took some time to get going last season after also moving from Italy at a young age, so Owen perhaps has a point as he discusses his concerns with the lack of a more proven striker signing.

Zirkzee transfer concern expressed by ex-Man Utd man Owen

“Joshua Zirkzee could be an important player for Manchester United, but it will be really interesting at the start of the new season to see if they are going to adapt to a certain style of play,” Owen told Casino Hawks, as quoted by the Metro.

“Zirkzee doesn’t look prolific in terms of goals but what is for sure is that Manchester United needed bolstering in that position. You look back at the great United teams, they had four top strikers at times.

“Manchester United have just had a dearth of goal scorers in recent years so bringing in a talented player won’t go amiss there.

“The next step will just be to wait and see how he does, but at some point Manchester United are going to need somebody who’s going to bang in plenty of goals like they’ve had with Ruud van Nistelrooy, Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney as well as others down the years.

“At the moment you can only look at what Zirkzee has done so far and watch this space with him, it isn’t just having another body of quality up there but I think it will be a positive for Manchester United.

“At the moment the manager can hardly change things up there a lot of the time, especially with all the injuries that they have had. If it hasn’t been working then there hasn’t been much to bring on to change.

“So another body is great but even though it’s an exciting signing we need to hold fire and see how he settles in.”