Manchester United fans booed and jeered their own player on Monday night, as Joshua Zirkzee bore the brunt of supporters’ displeasure during a dismal first half against Newcastle United.
The Red Devils had been thoroughly outplayed and were 2-0 down on home soil to the Magpies, with another strike ruled out for offside and Newcastle also striking the woodwork in a woefully one-sided first half.
That prompted Ruben Amorim to turn to his subs bench after just 32 minutes, with Zirkzee replaced by Kobbie Mainoo in an attempt to beef up the centre of the pitch, where the hosts had been second best by a long distance.
Zirkzee immediately faced extremely loud cheers at the decision to remove him, followed by an equally loud round of boos as he left the pitch. The Dutch attacker didn’t take his place to sit on the bench, but immediately appeared to don a coat and depart towards the tunnel – only to reappear a few minutes later.
During his half-hour or so on the pitch, Zirkzee managed just 14 touches of the ball, completed three passes and won one free-kick, but had no impact in terms of creating or taking shots.
The match had been just his seventh Premier League start of the campaign, with Rasmus Hojlund typically preferred as the starting No9, with the Dutch 23-year-old scoring three times in what is now just under 700 league minutes of action.
Amorim’s early sub didn’t have much impact as Newcastle continued to have the better chances for the first half and still led 2-0 at the break – and that remained the final score at full time too.
At the time of Zirkzee’s substitution, former player Gary Neville – speaking on Sky Sports – called this version of Man United “the absolute worst pound for pound football team in the country, bar none.”
Fellow pundit Jamie Carragher called Lisandro Martinez, captain for the night in the absence of Bruno Fernandes, “awful” in his half-time assessment.
