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2 hours ago
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Benjamin Sesko’s career at Manchester United breaks into two distinct periods. In the first, he played 1,404 minutes of football and scored two goals. In the second, he has played 274 minutes and scored six goals: 702 minutes per goal and then 45 minutes 40 seconds per goal.
There’s a very obvious explanation. On 4 January, Sesko toiled in a 1-1 draw at Leeds. He didn’t manage a shot on target. He completed only 76% of his passes. He didn’t attempt a dribble but still lost possession five times. He was caught offside twice. On 5 January, Ruben Amorim was sacked.
On 6 January, Sesko scored both goals in a 2-2 draw at Burnley. It seems a little unfair to compare Amorim, who always came across as a thoroughly pleasant and decent man, to the White Witch from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but the similar thawing impact of their removals is undeniable. The snows are melting, the flowers are blossoming and creatures that had been turned to stone are becoming flesh and blood once again.
United, of course, have been here before, with an upturn under a beloved former player. The Ole Gunnar Solskjær experience means there is such a determination not to get carried away that there are some around United – fans and pundits – who are adamant Michael Carrick should not be given the job on a permanent basis almost whatever he achieves between now and the end of the season.
But there is a qualitative difference to what happened in 2019. Back then, there was a sense that United had decent players but they were diminished by the toxicity of the later part of José Mourinho’s reign. This season, there were doubts about how many of United’s players were any good at all.
It turns out, though, that a manager can make a huge impact by picking players in their best positions, restoring a hugely promising young midfielder ostracised because he didn’t fit a specific profile, and imbuing his charges with confidence.
After Sesko came off the bench to score the winner at Everton on Monday, he spoke of the importance of his sense that “everyone believes in me”. Which raises the obvious question of why that wasn’t true before. Did Amorim not rate him? Did Amorim not want him? Or was Amorim just bad at conveying to players on the fringes of the team how he saw them developing? And this is to do with Amorim. It’s not that Carrick is some sort of specialist Sesko-whisperer. The post-Amorim transformation was immediate, the Slovene scoring three goals in his two games under Darren Fletcher as interim manager.
Every day that has passed since Amorim left the club has made the decision to appoint him look worse. But the villain here is not Amorim, who told everybody he would always play 3-4-2-1 and then always played 3-4-2-1 at least until the very end, when fielding a back four felt like some sort of passive-aggressive act of defiance. The fault, rather, lies with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the process that imposed him on a disparate squad united only by their unsuitability for a manager who would play only 3-4-2-1, over the warnings of the then sporting director, Dan Ashworth, who left his role as a result. Amorim’s biggest fault was taking the job; little wonder he looked suddenly so much younger, so much more relaxed after being relieved of it.
United’s upturn in form still doesn’t justify United spending £200m on three forwards in the summer when there were such obvious deficiencies in other areas – although recent events have shown how Ratcliffe struggles with numbers, so that perhaps offers some explanation – but it least it now appears that money was spent on players who may be part of a successful future. Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo have clicked up a level since Carrick took over, but it’s in Sesko that the starkest improvement has been seen.
Last summer was characterised by Premier League clubs spending big money to sign orthodox strikers, with mixed results. Hugo Ekitiké has impressed. Alexander Isak, after his acrimonious move to Liverpool disrupted his pre‑season, was seemingly never at full fitness even before his broken leg. Rory Delap has struggled with injury at Chelsea. Even after his goals for Arsenal in the north London derby last Sunday, opinion is divided on Viktor Gyökeres.
But until early January, Sesko looked the most questionable of the lot. Allowances have to be made for the fact he is only 22, but he did not look in those early appearances like a £70m striker. His touch was heavy, his movement poor. But that’s the difference confidence and playing a coherent system can make.
A simple video session with Fletcher before the 2-2 draw with Burnley was enough to restore in Sesko a basic faith in what he has done until now in his career. Sesko excels at making runs in the blind spot of defenders, which is exactly what brought both his goals that day: the first, because his run on to Bruno Fernandes’s through ball wasn’t tracked; the second, because, although Bashir Humphreys knew Sesko was behind him, he didn’t know whether he was going to go left or right to meet Patrick Dorgu’s cross.
He got away from Kenny Tete to score the winner against Fulham. He got in front of Axel Disasi for his remarkable finish to equalise against West Ham.
Sesko’s movement is perhaps his greatest gift, but his physical attributes are obvious: he is good in the air, but also rapid over medium-to-long distances, as he showed in his winner on the break against Everton, confidence evident in every stride as he approached Mbeumo’s pass.
He’s less effective when given time to think but, given his age, that may come. And in his instincts to find space and finish, he’s already a hugely exciting talent, even if he is for now used mainly from the bench. It is remarkable what can happen when a manager uses a player in ways that accentuate his strengths rather than petrifying him with the wand of conformity to a strict tactical blueprint.
Nobody can pretend the background problems have gone away, but the tactical winter is over and Sesko is the frolicking avatar of the post-Amorim spring.
