Joshua Zirkzee opened up his Manchester United career perfectly on Friday night.
The £36.5m striker entered the pitch in the second half as a substitute for his debut and made an immediate impact for Manchester United.
Joshua Zirkzee scored the winner and joined Ruud van Nistelrooy in the history books while doing so.
Having made an impressive debut, fans were left blown away by Zirkzee and he has surely earned himself a start against Brighton after proving that United need a striker.
After his debut, the media in Italy have been reacting as they watch on keenly to see how the former Bologna striker does.
Italian media react to Joshua Zirkzee’s debut
It was not only United fans who were impressed by Zirkzee with the Italian media also being impressed.
Gazzetta gave Zirkzee the man of the match tag and explained the goal was just the “tip of the iceberg” in an impressive half hour.
“Zirkzee deserves the platonic title of man of the match: the goal is the tip of the iceberg of an excellent half-hour of the 23-year-old. Zirkzee has given United a new dimension, that offensive benchmark that serves to destabilise defences like Fulham’s. It’s a start for him.”
Sport Virgilio had a different approach, poking fun at Milan for missing out on Zirkzee, their headline read: “Milan, have you seen Zirkzee? That you missed, the Dutchman is already a Manchester United star”.
Adding: “Milan has yet to play their first league game and it’s probably too early to start with regrets. However, it must be noted the great debut of Joshua Zirkzee with the Manchester United shirt.”
Finally, Contro 11 praised the finish of Zirkzee, lauding him as being the decisive player in the win.
“A paw of cunning and precision from the new purchase of Zirkzee for Manchester United to be able to overtake Fulham… immediately presents himself as a decisive man in front of his fans.”
Zirkzee looks like the real deal
It is only one goal, and we do not want to get carried away with Zirkzee but he really does look like the real deal up front.
Zirkzee scored with his only shot and touch in Fulham’s box which is as clinical as humanly possible.
His huge stature and physical presence also seemed to cause Fulham chaos with his dummy runs often creating acres of space for his teammates.
Scoring on his debut is the best start the club could have asked for and he will be delighted to get one early to avoid the grumbles and criticism if he was to suffer a drought early on.
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