Manchester United’s £74m summer signing Benjamin Sesco will not be in the squad for Monday night’s Premier League game against Everton. The Slovenian striker was forced to withdraw from United’s thrilling draw with Tottenham before the international break and was suspended by manager Ruben Amorim. Sesko, who joined from RB Leipzig in the summer, missed international duty with Slovenia, much to the embarrassment of the national team manager.
The player was also conspicuously absent from United’s training session on Friday morning. Amorim confirmed in his pre-match press conference that Sesco would miss the game against Everton and could miss further games in the coming weeks. “He will be out for a few weeks,” the United manager revealed. “It’s not that serious. We need to be careful. He’s feeling better.”
Asked if Sesco would be sidelined during AFCON, when fellow forward Brian Mbeumo will also be absent, Amorim said: “It will be more or less the same time. I don’t want to say for sure, but we expect Ben to be back by the time they go to camp.”
Harry Maguire and Kobie Mainu were also absent from Friday’s training at Carrington. Amorim said Maguire was “not ready” to play on Monday, but Mainu was scheduled to train on Saturday and could feature against Everton.
“Maguire is not ready,” Amorim reiterated. “Coby didn’t train today, but I think we’ll see Koby tomorrow, so we’ll see.” He added: “Other players also have opportunities, like the under-21 players. You’ll see it’s not ideal. They’re very important to the team.”
Sesco has made 12 appearances for United so far, scoring two goals and providing one assist. His absence means Amorim will have to adjust his tactical approach, potentially putting Matheus Cunha in a false-nine role flanking Amad Diallo and Mbeumo.
United currently sit seventh in the Premier League table, with an impressive run of five games unbeaten and 18 points shared with four other clubs.
Amorim has previously suggested that United may be forced to enter the January transfer window, especially as Mbeumo will represent Cameroon at AFCON. “Of course there would be problems there (AFCON), but we already knew that,” he said.
“Since it’s one game a week, we knew there would be a lot of players not playing. So we knew it would be difficult to deal with that situation. Let’s see when opportunities open up and see if we can improve the team and try to repair something that happened. Until then, we have to take our chances. We’ll see.”
