Ben Foster believes Manchester United summer signing Joshua Zirkzee ‘would be done’ at Old Trafford if Sir Alex Ferguson was still in charge of the club.
Zirkzee was subbed off in the 33rd minute of United’s Premier League match against Newcastle United on Monday night with the Red Devils already trailing by two goals.
Ruben Amorim made the brutal decision after watching his midfield fail to gain any control, opting to sacrifice Zirkzee and bring on England’s Kobbie Mainoo to play alongside Christian Eriksen and Casemiro.
But Zirkzee was understandably irked by his early substituion and initially walked down the tunnel and back to the changing room before returning to United’s bench for the rest of the game.
Ex-Premier League star Foster, who spent five years at Manchester United as a back-up goalkeeper, was surprised by Zirkzee’s reaction and says it would not have been tolerated by Fergie, arguably the most successful manager of all time.
‘When he [Zirkzee] walked off down the tunnel… If Alex Ferguson would have been manager, that player would have been done,’ Foster said on his YouTube channel.
‘Whoever that is, if you walk off that pitch when you’ve been brought off after 30 minutes, get a coat and walk straight into the dressing room. You’re done. I promise you, you’re done. It just doesn’t work like that.
‘And I guarantee you, when he got back to the changing room, somebody would have said to him, “You need to get back outside. This is not a good look… The camera has just watched you walk all the way down the line, the fans are booing.
‘It is a horrible situation. I really feel for him. At that moment in time, the atmosphere in Old Trafford was horrible. United were getting pumped.
‘They were on the back foot and it was almost like he was the scapegoat. He was just one of 11 problems on that pitch.’
Zirkzee has underwhelmed following his £36.5m move from Atalanta last summer, scoring just three goals in 19 Premier League appearances.
Speaking after the Dutch forward was hauled off against Newcastle, Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand said he was ‘really gutted’ for the 23-year-old.
‘I feel for him. I’m really, really gutted for him as a former professional footballer,’ the ex-England defender said.
‘To be dragged off after 30 minutes is hard to take and then the reaction in the stadium as well, there was some boos and stuff like that. It’s difficult, man.
‘My heart goes out to him and I hope he can recover and I hope he gets rebuilt from within, from the players and the manager.
‘The manager said, “I’m going to go and speak to him because it was a tactical decision”, but what I would say is that this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this happen.
‘We’ve seen better players come back from this, we’ve seen some bigger and better players dragged off at these times in a game and it’s about having the resilience to come back as well.
‘This is a tough situation, I know that, but he needs people like Bruno, the captain of the team, who needs to set the right example discipline-wise but also in terms of a reaction to certain situations.
‘We need people like him [Fernandes] to go and get around Zirkzee and make sure, “You know what, this ain’t the end for you, there’s a future here”.
‘One thing I would say is we’re not seeing the best of any of our players right now and we’ve been saying that for a long time anyway.
‘But I think the manager needs to get to a pre-season and to really hammer home his ideas and then we can have a real judgement on him as a manager.’
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