Bayern Munich prospect Josua Zirkzee will play the 2021-22 season on loan at Belgian club Anderlecht, the Bundesliga champions confirmed on Tuesday.
Zirkzee, 20, is highly rated in the Bayern set-up and has featured for the Bavarians during their pre-season campaign after going on loan to Parma in 2020-21.
But Bayern ultimately decided to release him for the coming term rather than leave the youngster warming the bench behind Robert Lewandowski.
What was said?
"FC Bayern have loaned Joshua Zirkzee to RSC Anderlecht for a year without an option," Bayern stated on their official website.
"The 20-year-old striker is expected to gain more match practice with the Belgian record champions.
Next Match
Bayern sports director Hasan Salihamidzic added “It is very important for Joshua that he gets as much playing time as possible. RSC Anderlecht offer him this chance.
"Joshua can now take the next important step in his professional career in an interesting league, and I trust him to have a good season."
'More seriousness'
The Netherlands youth international, who has previously been featured in Goal's NxGn series profiling football's most promising youngsters, made the headlines for the wrong reasons during a pre-season friendly with the Bayern first team.
"I think that [Joshua Zirkzee] hasn’t seen his opponent approaching," Nagelsmann said after the game. "He wanted to finish this one casually. I hope that he has a different sense of seriousness in competitive matches.
"Basically, he is doing many things right. At the beginning of this situation, he recovered the ball very well. We all wished that we could have gone ahead there and I don’t think he did this deliberately.
"And I will not talk to him about this because he knows he could have done better."