Joshua Zirkzee has apologised to Manchester United’s fans after his decisive penalty miss against Fulham.
The Dutch forward saw his shootout effort saved by Bernd Leno in Sunday’s agonising fifth round defeat at Old Trafford, straight after team-mate Victor Lindelof had endured a similar fate.
It meant that holders United crashed out of the FA Cup before the quarter-final stage, despite Bruno Fernandes, Diogo Dalot and Casemiro all successfully dispatching their penalties after Fernandes’ brilliant late equaliser in normal time had cancelled out Calvin Bassey’s earlier header in a 1-1 draw and forced 30 additional goalless minutes.
Red Devils goalkeeper Andre Onana was not able to save any of the penalties from Fulham, who had success through Raul Jimenez, Sander Berge, Willian and Antonee Robinson and did not even need to step up a fifth time as the successive misses by Lindelof and Zirkzee secured a 4-3 shootout triumph.
It was a brighter performance from Zirkzee at times against Fulham but his failure from the spot continued a difficult first season at United following a £36.5million summer transfer from Serie A side Bologna.
The 23-year-old has made just 11 Premier League starts so far and scored only three top-flight goals, the last of which came back in early December.
Zirkzee has netted only five times in 40 total appearances for United across all competitions this term and was even linked with a swift January exit from the club, while he and United team-mate Matthijs de Ligt were both recently omitted from Ronald Koeman’s provisional Netherlands squad for the upcoming Nations League quarter-finals.
Zirkzee has now sent a message to the United fanbase after his penalty miss against Fulham. Taking to his Instagram account on Sunday night, he wrote: “Sorry to let u [sic] down today Reds! Thanks for the incredible support.”
