In the “crisis/they’re back” existence of the modern Manchester United, the pendulum is swinging in the more positive direction once again.
Last season’s 15th-place finish marked an unfathomable new low for the Premier League’s most successful club, while they lost a terrible Europa League final to a Tottenham team who were even worse than they were.
But Ruben Amorim has got some of the time he clearly required on the training ground to groove his methods with a squad that, following the attacking additions of Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, looks a little more built to his specification.
United have two wins from two in the Premier League Summer Series, overcoming West Ham 2-1 before an impressive 4-1 triumph against Bournemouth.
Rasmus Hojlund scored twice in the latter game, but a report by the Manchester Evening News claimed United were ready to cut their losses on the Denmark striker, putting a £30 million ($39.8m) asking price on the head of a player they signed in a deal potentially worth £72m ($95.6m) from Atalanta in 2023.
MORE: How Man Utd can land Benjamin Sesko before transfer deadline
Viktor Gyokores enjoyed prolific success under Amorim at Sporting CP but plumped for a move to Arsenal, so United have now reportedly trained their sights on RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko, a transfer tug-of-war with Newcastle United seemingly in prospect.
Sesko is a talented, raw and physically imposing 22-year-old who has vast room for improvement. All of this tempers the fact that his goal-scoring record thus far has been solid, promising, but hardly prolific. Haven’t we been here before?
Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp
Benjamin Sesko vs. Rasmus Hojlund: Are Man United making the same transfer mistake?
If Sesko moves to Old Trafford, he will have trodden a similar path to Hojlund – impressing in the Austrian Bundesliga before joining a European competitor from one of the ‘big five’ leagues to pave the way to England.
Both men are 22, with Hojlund three months Sesko’s senior. It means the Slovenia international has not had quite the same accelerated existence, which could work in his favour.
After 32 appearances — only five of which came as a starter — and five goals for FC Copenhagen, Hojlund joined Sturm Graz for €1.8m ($2m) in January 2022. Across the remainder of the 2021/22 campaign and the opening weeks of the following season, he scored 12 times in 21 appearances in all competitions for the Austrian club, who turned in a very tidy profit in the space of eight months when they sold him to Serie A side Atalanta for €17m ($19.7m).
In 2021/22, Sesko featured mainly as a substitute for RB Salzburg, scoring five times, following a prolific loan spell in 2. Liga with FC Liefering. After Hojlund swapped Austria for Italy, Sesko lit up the country’s top flight with 16 goals in 30 appearances as Salzburg retained their title.
Those performances marked Sesko as being ready for his next move through the Red Bull system. In July 2023, the same month United and Atalanta agreed a fee for Hojlund, he moved to RB Leipzig.
Hojlund’s 10 goals in 34 appearances at Atalanta under Gian Piero Gasperini — a coach who, like Amorim, likes to play with variants based around an attacking 3-4-3 — persuaded United to part with a vast sum. He entered a team in a state of flux under Erik ten Hag and endured a season of feast or famine under the harsh Old Trafford spotlight.
An interminable wait of 14 games for a first Premier League goal was followed by seven in his next six appearances. That accounted for the bulk of 10 goals in 30 Premier League games, and Hojlund also scored five in six to provide a bright spark in United’s otherwise shambolic Champions League group stage.
Such streaky runs could also be found in Sesko’s work, as he often featured as an impact sub for Leipzig before scoring in each of their final seven Bundesliga games, finishing 2023/24 with 14 goals in 31 appearances.
Sesko backed this up to a fashion, with 13 in 33 outings last season. But he was an undisputed first-choice starter, playing 870 more minutes for one less goal. They’re decent numbers from a player of obvious potential but not the sort of return you know you can take to the bank. It’s hardly the Austria-Germany-Premier League path trodden by Erling Haaland, for example.
So what makes United think Sesko is their man at a time when they appear to have decided the Hojlund project has run its course?
How good is Benjamin Sesko and why do Man United want him?
Although Sesko’s pace, power and penchant for rocketing home spectacular strikes dominate his YouTube compilations, it feels like a safe bet that his capacity to drop deep and link play will have caught Amorim’s attention.
In the Portuguese coach’s 3-4-2-1, the centre-forward’s capacity to do this creates opportunities for the wing-backs to get up the field and the support attackers to move beyond him. Cunha and Mbeumo will only truly increase United’s goal threat if they are able to thrive by working off a dependable No. 9. Hojlund fell well short in this regard last season, with Joshua Zirkzee clearly far more adept at carrying out the hold-up part of the brief.
According to data collated by FBRef, Sesko completed 47 progressive carries in league play last session compared to Hojlund’s 28. For progressive passes — passes that move the ball at least 10 yards towards the opposition goal or into their penalty area — the gulf is even bigger: 46 to 18.
Sesko claimed five assists in the Bundesliga last term; Hojlund didn’t manage any in the Premier League. Per 90 minutes, Sesko received possession 26.2 times on average, compared to 18.3 for Hojlund.
In this context, the arrivals of Mbeumo and Cunha do much to shed a positive light on United’s Sesko pursuit. It’s best to reserve judgement given the recent past, but United might just be showing a little bit of joined-up thinking in the transfer market.
If Amorim were to persist with Hojlund, there is a risk the former Brentford and Wolves favourites would go the same way as numerous star signings at Old Trafford over the past decade — thrown into an ill-conceived team that cannot bring out their strengths.
Sesko is a work in progress but the fact he can contribute in multiple ways and might still be useful to the team if he is not among the goals himself is a key element. Hojlund too quickly became a punchline at United. It might be harder to laugh at Sesko’s expense.
Manchester United news and related links
