Revealed: Why Manchester United substituted Joshua Zirkzee at half-time of Wolves draw
Man Utd were held to a 1-1 draw by Wolves in the Premier League on Tuesday night.
Ruben Amorim confirmed he replaced Joshua Zirkzee due to tactical reasons after Manchester United were held to a 1-1 draw by Wolves in the Premier League on Tuesday night.
The Dutch forward was handed a rare start when he replaced Mason Mount in the starting line up and gave United the lead in the match when his deflected effort found the back of the net. Zirkzee then had a role to play in the Wolves equaliser when he flicked on a corner kick that was turned in at the back post by Ladislav Krejci.
It meant the two sides went in level at the half-time break and Zirkzee did not emerge for the second half when he was replaced by teenager Jack Fletcher. The 24-year-old took his place on the substitute bench shortly after the restart, but his early exit was not due to an injury.
Why Manchester United substituted Joshua Zirkzee
Ruben Amorim reverted to his favoured 3-4-2-1 formation for the draw with Wolves as Joshua Zirkzee replaced Mason Mount in the Manchester United starting line up.
Zirkzee did not return to the pitch for the second-half of the match and afterwards Amorim explained his withdrawal was due to tactical reasons rather than any fitness issues. "We were running around trying to recover the ball," he told Sky Sports. "They overload with a lot of midfielders and we were struggling with that and sometimes you can attack better with less strikers. We played with three strikers, Cunha, Josh and Sesko, and sometimes it is not the best thing to attack well."
United were without eight senior players for the Wolves draw after the fresh injury setback to Mount, but Amorim did not want to point towards the absentees as an excuse for their poor performance. He added: "We struggled for the whole game. We had a lack of creativity but we knew that it would be a different game compared to Newcastle. We had a different energy during the game also. If you look at the game, we had our chances, but the fluidity wasn't there because there is a lack of connections."
"The players tried. We didn't play well and when you don't play well with the ball you struggle even without the ball. We need to recover and to go to the next one."
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