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Gary Neville and Harry Maguire have hailed the resilience Joshua Zirkzee showed after scoring the winning penalty in Manchester United’s FA Cup tie against Arsenal on Sunday.
After Gabriel cancelled out Bruno Fernandes’ opener in the third-round clash at the Emirates Stadium, 10-man United advanced to the fourth round after a 5-3 penalty shoot-out victory. United scored all five penalties in North London, while Kai Havertz was the only one of the Gunners’ four spot-kick takers to miss his effort.
It meant that after four penalties apiece, Zirkzee, United’s fifth penalty taker, had the opportunity to seal his side’s progression to the last-32 stage of the competition. For the 23-year-old, it was his first significant involvement for United since he was jeered off after 33 minutes at Old Trafford in the 2-0 defeat to Newcastle United at the end of December.
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But after Zirkzee scored the game-winning penalty in front of the travelling Reds on Sunday, Neville praised the resilience the Dutchman showed to bounce back from his recent disappointment.
“A few weeks back Joshua Zirkzee was subbed off and I described the reaction at the time on commentary as brutal. I felt sorry for him in that moment,” wrote the former United and England full-back on LinkedIn. “There have been noises that he may even leave because of it. He’s a young player who has had a tough start to his United career in a period where it’s been a challenge for the club with the change of manager and results and sometimes those reactions from the crowd happen and it’s difficult for any player to deal with.
“To step up to take the final pressure penalty yesterday at the Emirates is exactly the response you want to see from a player when something like that happens and you could see the reaction from the other players toward him and what it meant.
“It will have been a rough moment for him the other week and he still has a long way to go but scoring that penalty and hearing the United fans singing his name was a great pick-me-up moment for him!”
Meanwhile, Maguire, who has endured his fair share of criticism during a rollercoaster career at Old Trafford, was also full of praise for Zirkzee.
“That game against Newcastle Josh was the unfortunate one to get subbed off, you could have subbed any of the 11 players off at that moment in time and they would have all got booed, because we all deserved to get booed because we were awful in the first 30 minutes,” said Maguire.
“It had nothing to do really with Josh, he probably knows that and he probably felt it at the time, even though it was disappointing for him. It’s a great ending today that he scores that winning penalty and the lads had full faith in him that he does.”