Benjamin Sesko needed 18 minutes of Champions League football to remind Manchester United why they bought him. Running onto Bryan Mbeumo’s pass through the inside-left channel on Thursday night, the Slovenia striker saw Sabah goalkeeper rush from his line, took the ball round him and rolled it into an empty net. It was United’s third goal in a 4-0 win at Old Trafford, and Sesko’s second in two games, four days after his 88th-minute header at Everton had briefly won a match United went on to draw.
It was also his first start since the Liverpool fixture in March, the game in which he aggravated the shin problem that ended his 2025-26 season three matches early and cost him almost all of pre-season. Michael Carrick now has a fit centre-forward with 12 goals in his last 21 appearances for the club — and a derby on Sunday.
A striker rediscovering his timing
Sesko’s first season in England was respectable rather than transformative: 30 Premier League appearances, 11 goals and one assist after his move from RB Leipzig in the summer of 2025, a campaign played under two managers and finished on the touchline in a tracksuit. The shin injury he carried into the summer meant he missed United’s opening pre-season fixtures and was not trusted to start their first three league games of this season.
That caution looks increasingly redundant. At the Hill Dickinson Stadium he came off the bench and met Luke Shaw’s delivery with the sort of header only a 6ft 5in centre-forward produces, putting United 2-1 up with two minutes left. Ainsley Maitland-Niles then curled a 96th-minute equaliser past Senne Lammens on his Everton debut, and the moment was swallowed by the result. Against Sabah it was not: Matheus Cunha had opened the scoring from Patrick Dorgu’s cross on 27 minutes, Bruno Fernandes added a second, and Sesko’s goal before the interval settled a night United had waited nearly three years for.
The context mattered. It was United’s 300th match in the Champions League and their first since a defeat by Bayern Munich in December 2023 sent them out at the group stage under Erik ten Hag. It was also only their third win in their last 12 matches in the competition — and two of those three have come under Carrick.
The threat United did not have
Carrick’s assessment of what Sesko offers was blunt. “We know what Ben gives us,” he said. “There’s not many around that kind of give you what Ben does in terms of his physique, his physicality, playing on the last line and his speed to run in behind.”
That is the tactical point. United’s attack in Sesko’s absence has been built around Cunha and Mbeumo, both of whom are at their most dangerous coming towards the ball — dropping into midfield, combining, running at defenders from wide. It is coherent, and the 5-2 win over Ipswich Town showed how quickly it can produce goals. What it does not do is pin a back four to its own penalty area.
Sesko does. He plays on the shoulder, he stretches the pitch vertically, and he turns a goalkeeper’s decision to come out — as Sabah’s did — into a mistake. Sesko’s own description of the goal was almost clinical: “I saw him rushing out, and it was a great opportunity to take the ball away from him and make the goal a little bit easier.”
A selection call with a derby attached
United go into Sunday’s 15:30 BST kick-off at Old Trafford 11th with four points from three games — beaten 2-0 at Hull City, winners against Ipswich, pegged back at Everton. Enzo Maresca’s Manchester City arrive top of the table with a perfect nine points from nine, seven goals scored and two conceded, after wins over Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and a 1-0 at Coventry City settled by an Erling Haaland header. City also have a Champions League trip to Porto to negotiate first.
The recent ledger is split. City won 3-0 at the Etihad in September 2025; United won 2-0 at Old Trafford in January 2026, in Carrick’s first match in charge. Amad Diallo’s continued absence thins the options further.
Carrick was candid about the dilemma Sesko has handed him.
- “It’s not an easy decision, of course it’s not,” he said. “But it’s definitely one I’d prefer: to have goals in the team and for the boys to be playing well.”
Against a City side still absorbing a new manager’s system and a heavily rebuilt squad, a striker who occupies both centre-backs and runs the channels is an awkward problem to solve on three days’ rest. Sesko has picked an unusually good week to become undroppable.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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