{"id":766972,"date":"2026-09-11T06:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T06:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/766972\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T06:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T06:26:09","slug":"benjamin-sesko-can-help-manchester-united-find-top-form-after-two-goals-in-two-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/766972\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Sesko can help Manchester United find top form after two goals in two games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester United<\/a> will experience far stiffer tests of their Champions League credentials than Sabah FK gave them at Old Trafford.<\/p>\n

In fact, it would be no surprise if the Azerbaijani champions were by some distance the weakest of the eight league stage opponents Michael Carrick’s side will come up against.<\/p>\n

However, there were some important lessons for head coach Carrick to absorb.<\/p>\n

The biggest of them is that United are a much more effective unit when Benjamin Sesko starts.<\/p>\n

This was the first time the Slovenian had done that since the Liverpool<\/a> game last March, when he finally accepted he could no longer play through the shin issue that had been plaguing him for a number of weeks.<\/p>\n

It had been hoped Sesko would be fit for the start of the Premier League season.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, he was only at the stage where he could be brought on as a substitute in the second half of the opening-day trip to Hull. The same also applied for the subsequent outings against Ipswich and Everton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was Sabah’s bad luck that Sesko was fit to start against them \u2013 and it showed.<\/p>\n

At 6ft 5in, the 23-year-old has a physical presence United’s other strikers lack.<\/p>\n

Amad Diallo’s current absence has robbed Carrick of the option to start Bryan Mbeumo at the head of his attack, as he did during pre-season, but Matheus Cunha is not without ability in that role.<\/p>\n

The problem is that the Brazilian likes to drift and drop back into space, which leaves a gap at the apex of Manchester United<\/a>‘s attack.<\/p>\n

Sesko offers a totally different threat. He pushes defences back. He is not easy to dispossess. He runs at opponents rather than away from them.<\/p>\n

He also scores goals.<\/p>\n

At Everton<\/a>, it was his size that allowed him to convert a close-range header that looked set to give United victory but ultimately didn’t, because of Ainsley Maitland-Niles’ stunning late strike.<\/p>\n

Against Sabah FK, Sesko had threatened with an impudent first-half back-flick before Mbeumo sent him running beyond the visitors’ defence.<\/p>\n

Sesko had clarity of thought, swiftly moving the ball past goalkeeper Stas Pokatilov before steering the ball into an empty net.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester United will experience far stiffer tests of their Champions League credentials than Sabah FK gave them at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-766972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}