Why Man Utd boss Ten Hag decided to hold back Zirkzee

The new summer recruit was benched for last week's Community Shield loss against Manchester City.

Ahead of tonight's Premier League kickoff against Fulham, Ten Hag said: "I think he is close, so that is one of the complications.

"We don’t have a pre-season with him so we need games to bring him.

"If you see his background, in the last months he had an injury with Bologna. In the end, he made the selection for the Netherlands, so that helped him out of our first few weeks of pre-season.

"So no games - that is his problem in this moment. But now it is his third week in training, you see him stepping up, his fitness levels are improving and he needs more minutes and we can’t do it in a friendly, it has to go into the league.

"I am so happy I have those (attacking) choices, that fit for all units, all positions, we need a number of players going into the season. We think about 60 games so it will be a survival of the fittest, we need squad depth.

"You have to make choices and you need rotation. No player can play all the games but also internal competition and you also need some weapons to use tactically.

"I am very happy we have those numbers and we have quality players so we can make those choices. We also have quality players with different abilities and that is good to have them in the squad."