Unsure about you, however once we at FFT had been youngsters on lazy summer season holidays away from faculty, we used to sit down and sketch out what we thought our groups’ squad numbers should be for the brand new season forward.
That was within the days when numbers 1 to 11 had been extra extremely prized and gamers used to get upgraded as a ceremony of passage, after all, whereas these days an increasing number of gamers are dedicated to the numbers they get given early of their careers: Phil Foden’s 47 for Manchester Metropolis, Trent Alexander-Arnold’s 66 for Liverpool, and so forth.
So it is not as simple because it was once to guess the place a marquee signing may match into the squad quantity hierachy – together with new Manchester United centre-forward Joshua Zirkzee .
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Which quantity will Joshua Zirkee have on his shirt at Manchester United?
The excellent news for old-schoolers is that Zirkzee doesn’t appear to have a specific desire: he is worn a number of completely different numbers all through his profession, usually making an attempt to decrease it as he goes. Inside motive, like; he isn’t going to go full Milan Baros and put on quantity 5. He’d should struggle Harry Maguire for it anyway.
Zirkzee’s first senior outings for Bayern Munich got here within the quantity 35 shirt in 2019/20, however the next season he was given quantity 14, as is just proper and correct for a Dutchman having been famously favoured by Johan Cruyff.
Zirkzee’s transfer on mortgage to Parma noticed him put on 17, then in one other mortgage to Anderlecht, it was 23. On his return to Bayern Munich, he was in 32, along with his quantity 14 having been taken by Paul Wanner. In his first half-season at Bologna, Zirkzee wore quantity 11, however final season swapped it for 9, a la Roberto Firmino.
Joshua Zirkzee wore quantity 21 for the Netherlands at Euro 2024 (Picture credit score: Getty Pictures)
Zirzkee has worn 9, 10 and 11 for the Dutch under-21s (in addition to #20), whereas at Euro 2024, he was allotted the quantity 21 shirt.
If we needed to guess, then, we dare say he would fairly prefer to have the quantity 9 shirt at Manchester United, which fortunately is at present vacant following Anthony Martial’s departure from the membership.
Not lots of the different numbers he has worn prior to now can be found: Jonny Evans has 35, Luke Shaw has 23, Antony has 21, Christian Eriksen wears 14, Rasmus Hojlund bears the quantity 11 and Marcus Rashford has 10 nailed down.
Antony Martial gave up the quantity 9 shirt to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, however later obtained it again
Earlier Manchester United quantity 9s embrace Sir Bobby Charlton (who additionally wore 10), Andy Cole, Dimitar Berbatov and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Martial was really in his second spell as United’s quantity 9, having beforehand given it as much as Ibrahimovic, who handed it on to Romelu Lukaku upon his departure in 2017.
And that is numberwang.
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