Manchester United are set to confirm the signing of Benjamin Sesko in the coming days with the Red Devils taking their transfer spending over the £200million mark
Ruben Amorim now has the strike force he wanted, in his quest to make Manchester United great again. And given it has cost his club more than £210m combined, Amorim will be praying it works.
Because while Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo are proven successes in the Premier League, Benjamin Sesko is not. And out of the three, he has cost the most.
Sesko, who is poised to complete a £74m switch to United this weekend, had a decent strike rate in the Bundesliga with RB Leipzig. But he is just 22, has never played for one of the genuinely big clubs, and will find that establishing himself at Old Trafford is easier said than done.
All he needs to do is ask Rasmus Hojlund about the pressures and demands on a United forward.
It’s understood Amorim will use Sesko to spearhead his attack, with Mbeumo and Cunha dovetailing from either side in a front three. And on paper, the Portuguese coach now has an attacking trio who stand a good chance of being able to terrorise certain defences.
Although where Amad Diallo fits in remains to be seen, while there are still problems for Amorim to solve elsewhere. Like in midfield, defence and goal.
Bruno Fernandes remains United’s only world class midfielder, hence why the team has been so reliant on him in recent seasons. But Casemiro is well past his best, Mason Mount cannot be relied upon, and Manuel Ugarte is nowhere near good enough to help United get to the level they want to.
As for Kobbie Mainoo, his career has gone backwards since Amorim took charge last November, and his United future remains unclear.
Amorim is keen to sign Brighton midfielder Carlos Baleba, while a loan move for Emiliano Martinez was rebuffed by Aston Villa.
While more new arrivals before the window closes now depends on United being able to ship on the dead wood still cluttering up the English giants.
Most notably those infamous rebels now known as the ‘bomb squad’. Marcus Rashford has been loaned to Barcelona, saving United around £12m in wages, but the likes of Antony, Alejandro Garnacho and Jadon Sancho are proving harder to shift.
Sancho, who earns £250,000-a-week, has become United’s most pressing problem.
United’s summer spend of £214m comes, despite co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe having said in March his club would run out of cash at the end of 2025 if it hadn’t have been for his cruel cost-cutting measures. But United’s finances continue to remain in a perilous state.
The last quarterly accounts showed United owe £175.5m in net transfer payments before the end of March 2026 alone. United spent £204m on new signings last summer, £179m in the summer of 2023 and £227m 12 months before that.
Couple this with United’s miserable record when it comes to selling players, not to mention the £500m of debt the club still has to service in relation to the Glazer takeover two decades ago, and the financial scenario remains bleak.
At least the new signings have the benefit of new training facilities to get stuck into. Improvement work done on United’s Carrington complex was unveiled on Friday, with a certain Sir Alex Ferguson in attendance.
Ratcliffe claims it will lead to a ‘winning culture’. And all supporters can do now is wait to discover if he is right.
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