‘Zirkzee has improved a lot!’ Amorim praises forward after ending goal drought in United’s victory at Crystal Palace | OneFootball

Ruben Amorim praised the improvement of forward Joshua Zirkzee after he netted for the first time in just under a year as Manchester United earned a valuable three points at Crystal Palace.

Zirkzee levelled for the visitors after Jean-Philippe Mateta’s first-half penalty, before Mason Mount went on to win the game for United just past the hour mark.

The victory moves Amorim’s men back into the top six and the Portuguese coach was quick to praise 24-year-old Zirkzee after a difficult spell.

“Scoring is important but it’s not just the goals,” he explained. 

“They give confidence but Joshua has also improved a lot in how he holds the ball. That should give him a lot of confidence. He influences the game and that’s important to our game. He needs to maintain that level in training.

“It’s the runs and you could see it with Zirkzee and how he connected with the team through the second ball. You have to explain that to the players but we have experience of being like that [tired] from last season when we played midweek.”

Amorim continued: “They have the quality and we have more players in the squad who can score. I’m really happy with them. Joshua [Zirkzee] hasn’t had many minutes and Mason [Mount] works really hard.”

“It was small details that helped. The pace and intensity was better in the second half. I could see that Palace were getting tired at the end of the first half and knew they would suffer if we scored.

“We went on to control the game well away from our goal and in the opposition half. We controlled the game well but just have to be careful about what we did in the first half.

“In this moment I just want to evaluate our team. We need to evolve and create variety in how we build-up – that’s the most important thing.”