{"id":290135,"date":"2025-11-17T09:51:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T09:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/290135\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T09:51:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T09:51:23","slug":"manchester-united-pair-left-in-limbo-amid-transfer-stance-and-nightmare-world-cup-scenario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/290135\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester United pair left in limbo amid transfer stance and nightmare World Cup scenario"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Manchester United are out of favour for club and country and only an unlikely January exit will salvage their World Cup ambitions\"KobbieJoshua Zirkzee and Kobbie Mainoo have fallen down the pecking order for club and country<\/p>\n

When England faced the Netherlands for a place in the European Championship finals 18 months ago, two Manchester United stars were dreaming of international glory. Now they\u2019re facing a transfer conundrum to try and save their World Cup dream.<\/p>\n

Kobbie Mainoo and Joshua Zirzkee are both in the international wilderness just now with game time for Manchester United in short supply.<\/p>\n

Mainoo was something of a breakout star for England in their run to the final of Euro 2024 and seemed to have a central midfield position under lock and key for years to come for club and country. Under two years later and the 20-year-old has fallen down the pecking order under Ruben Amorim and will need a January move and a stunning run of form to offer any hope of a late run into Thomas Tuchel\u2019s England thinking.<\/p>\n

Mainoo\u2019s stuttering career is puzzling to plenty and while Amorim has offered words of encouragement, they haven\u2019t translated into meaningful minutes.<\/p>\n

And even though he is on the fringes of things at Old Trafford, United are unlikely to sanction a temporary move away for the youngster given he is a regular in matchday squads.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a similar story for Zirkzee, who came off the bench for the Netherlands against England in that semi-final but can\u2019t get off it for United this season.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been used sparingly by Amorim and even the injury to sole centre forward Benjamin Sesko doesn\u2019t look like yielding many minutes for the Dutchman.<\/p>\n

He has been left out of the recent international squads and with Ronald Koeman\u2019s side all but assured a place in the World Cup, Zirkzee must surely move if he is to join his countrymen in North America.<\/p>\n

But again United are not certain to offload the 24-year-old particularly given Sesko\u2019s injury, even if Amorim suggested the club might look to add an attacking option in January.<\/p>\n

Zirkzee and Mainoo are set to remain on the outside looking in, just as they will be in the summer come the World Cup.<\/p>\n

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————<\/p>\n

Here at The Manchester Evening News, we are dedicated to bringing you the best Manchester United<\/a> coverage and analysis.<\/p>\n

Make sure you don’t miss out on the latest United news by joining our free WhatsApp group. You can get all the breaking news and best analysis sent straight to your phone by clicking here<\/a> to subscribe.<\/p>\n

You can also subscribe to our free newsletter service. Click here<\/a> to be sent all the day’s biggest stories.<\/p>\n

And, finally, if you would rather listen to our expert analysis then make sure to check out our Manchester is Red podcast. Our shows are available on all podcast platforms, including Spotify<\/a> and Apple Podcasts<\/a>, and you can also watch along on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Manchester United are out of favour for club and country and only an unlikely January exit will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290136,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,62965,22884,1752,19544,85],"class_list":["post-290135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-joshua-zirkzee","tag-kobbie-mainoo","tag-manchester-united-fc","tag-manchester-united-transfer-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}