Manchester United's Champions League Ambitions: Sesko's Impact
Manchester United will face far sterner examinations of their Champions League ambitions than this. Sabah FK were willing, organised and proud, but at Old Trafford they looked every inch what they are: likely the weakest of the eight sides Michael Carrick’s team will meet in the league phase.
That didn’t make the night meaningless. Far from it. It underlined a truth Carrick can no longer ignore.
United are simply a better team when Benjamin Sesko starts.
Sesko changes the picture
This was Sesko’s first start since that Liverpool game in March, the day he finally accepted he could not keep playing through the shin problem that had stalked him for weeks. The plan back then was simple: get him fit for the start of the Premier League season.
Reality bit. He was only ready for cameos – off the bench at Hull on the opening day, then again against Ipswich and Everton. United had to make do. Sabah did not get that luxury.
They caught him on the night he returned to the XI. And they felt it.
At 6ft 5in, the 23-year-old brings a presence no other United forward can match. Amad Diallo’s absence has already forced Carrick to shelve the pre-season experiment of using Bryan Mbeumo through the middle. Matheus Cunha can operate there and has quality, but he sees the game differently. He drifts, he drops off, he searches for space between the lines.
When he does that, the tip of United’s attack disappears.
Sesko does the opposite. He stretches defences. He pins centre-backs. He runs at people, not away from them. You feel him long before he gets the ball.
And crucially, he finishes.
A reminder of what United have been missing
At Everton, it was his sheer size and timing that brought him that close-range header which should have won the game before Ainsley Maitland-Niles ripped up the script at the death. Against Sabah, the threat built slowly.
First came an audacious back-flick in the first half, a little warning sign. Then Mbeumo slid him in behind the visiting defence and the whole stadium seemed to pause.
Sesko didn’t. One touch to move the ball past the onrushing Stas Pokatilov, then a calm steer into the empty net. No fuss, no panic, just clarity.
“Of course, I’m happy with my goal,” Sesko told TNT afterwards. “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.”
That is the point for Carrick. Mbeumo and Cunha can make those runs and score those goals. Sesko does that while also bullying centre-backs, occupying them, forcing them to turn and chase. The old cliché about “good control for a big man” barely covers it. Players who combine that size with touch and pace are rare – and priceless.
“He definitely offers a different kind of threat,” Carrick said. “That’s the beauty of it, really. We know what Ben gives us. 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. He’s a real threat.
“It’s great to have him back at this level after working to get his fitness back. A couple of goals and good performances, and good minutes in him. I’m really pleased with the way he’s gone.”
The derby dilemma
Which leaves Carrick staring at the only question that really matters this week.
Does he trust Sesko’s fitness and throw him straight into Sunday’s derby against Manchester City at Old Trafford? Or does he step back to Cunha, with no sign yet that Amad is close to a return?
On this evidence, Sesko has to start. His presence alone changes the geometry of United’s attack.
If Carrick agrees, the next call is just as delicate: who plays off the left? Cunha, who opened the scoring against Sabah, or Marcus Rashford, who did not get on the pitch?
Rashford is still searching for his first goal or assist since returning from last season’s loan at Barcelona, but he remains United’s most consistent outlet with his pace and direct running. When he’s on that flank, defenders know they cannot relax.
Cunha, by contrast, tends to drift into the same pockets Bruno Fernandes loves to occupy. That overlap can clog United’s structure as much as it can overwhelm opponents. Carrick may decide that with Sesko on the last line and Fernandes pulling strings, the balance is better with Rashford hugging that left side and driving at full-backs.
If he has made that call already, he kept it to himself on a night when Fernandes also found the net.
“It’s not an easy decision, of course it’s not,” Carrick said of his selection puzzle. “But it’s definitely one I’d prefer: to have goals in the team and for the boys to be playing well.
The understanding they all have is that sometimes it’s going to be a start, sometimes it’s going to be finishing the game. We need that within the group, from game to game over the season, to be able to call upon slightly different kind of things at different times.
“It’s fantastic they’re all in good form and started so well.”
United will not measure themselves by what they did to Sabah FK in September. They will be judged by what happens when City walk out at Old Trafford on Sunday – and by whether Carrick is brave enough to build that test around his 6ft 5in centrepiece.
