“Great spirit”: United star lavishes praise on team’s response despite 4-3 cup defeat to Spurs

Manchester United striker Joshua Zirkzee claimed it is never fun losing but praised his side’s fighting spirit in last night’s defeat to Tottenham Hotspur.

Despite a decent first half, United fell 3-0 down after just 54 minutes of play.

Zirkzee came on as a substitute and scored just after the hour mark to breathe life into United and they would eventually narrowly lose 4-3.

The Dutchman has not had the best of starts at United but has scored four goals now for the club and three in the month of December.

The forward has very much been behind Rasmus Hojlund in the pecking order as of late but that may be just about to change if he continues to impress like he did last night.

Speaking after the game to MUTV he claimed, “losing is never fun, especially when you know it’s another cup you could potentially win, so it’s disappointing but I think we showed great spirit as well.”

In spite of the loss, the Dutchman was keen to highlight some positives.

“We just kept fighting and I think we can be proud of ourselves for the fact that we never stopped.”

The 23 year old benefitted from a calamitous mistake from the Spurs keeper Fraser Foster. He passed the ball right to Bruno Fernandes, who squared the ball to Zirkzee who slotted home in front of the away fans to make it 3-1 on the night and give the Red Devils hope.

Commenting on his goal he said, “I think it was good timing, you know, right in front of the fans as well.”

“That’s just what we tried today when we came on, just bringing good energy onto the pitch and yeah, sadly, we couldn’t change it around.”

Zirkzee then spoke on the need for United to overcome any disappointment of missing out on the trophy and highlighted the importance of quickly returning to winning ways in the league against Bournemouth this Sunday.

“I think that we all know that we just have to deliver, we always have to deliver, so we’re just going to come out Sunday and make sure we get three points,” he said.

Feature image Alex Pantling via Getty Images


Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social

Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.

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