Manchester United's Options: Sesko vs. Cunha Ahead of City Derby
Manchester United will face far harsher examinations of their Champions League ambitions than this. Sabah FK were out of their depth at Old Trafford, and it showed.
They may prove to be the weakest of the eight opponents United meet in the new league phase. That doesn’t mean the night was meaningless. For Michael Carrick, it underlined one thing above all.
United are a different team when Benjamin Sesko starts.
Sesko changes the picture
This was Sesko’s first start since the Liverpool game last March, the night he finally stopped trying to play through the shin problem that had nagged him for weeks. United hoped he would be ready for the start of the Premier League season. He wasn’t.
Hull away on the opening day? Came off the bench. Ipswich and Everton? Same story. Minutes, not matches.
Sabah were the first to feel the full version.
At 6ft 5in, the 23-year-old brings a presence no other United forward can match. With Amad Diallo sidelined, Carrick has lost the option of using Bryan Mbeumo through the middle, as he did in pre-season. Matheus Cunha has filled that role and has obvious talent, but he plays it his way.
Cunha drifts. He drops into pockets, looks for the ball, wants to knit play. When he does, the top of United’s attack can look empty.
Sesko rips that script up. He pins defenders back. He occupies centre-backs. He runs at them, not away from them. And he scores.
At Everton, his size allowed him to power in a close-range header that should have won the game before Ainsley Maitland-Niles’ spectacular late equaliser. Against Sabah, the threat was there from the start – an audacious back-flick in the first half hinted at the confidence returning.
Then the opening came. Mbeumo slid a pass in behind, Sesko burst beyond the Sabah defence, and everything slowed down.
One touch to move the ball past the onrushing Stas Pokatilov. Another to roll it into the empty net. Simple, because he made it look that way.
“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.”
United know Mbeumo and Cunha can run in behind. The difference is that Sesko offers that same threat while also being the towering focal point defenders hate to deal with.
The old cliché about “good control for a big man” doesn’t really do him justice. Players who combine that frame with touch, timing 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.”
A derby dilemma
Now comes the awkward part.
Sunday brings the derby against Manchester City at Old Trafford. Carrick suddenly has a decision that could shape the game.
Does he trust Sesko’s fitness and keep him in the side? Or does he turn back to Cunha for such a high-intensity fixture, with no sign yet that Amad is close to returning?
On this evidence, Sesko has earned the start. If Carrick agrees, that triggers another call on the left.
Cunha, who opened the scoring against Sabah, or Marcus Rashford?
Rashford didn’t get on the pitch against Sabah. An unused substitute, watching as others filled the scoresheet. He has yet to score or assist since returning from last season’s loan at Barcelona, but he has still been United’s most consistent outlet with his raw pace and direct running.
Cunha, by contrast, likes to drift into the same sort of spaces Bruno Fernandes naturally occupies. It can crowd the central channels. Carrick may feel United’s shape looks cleaner with Rashford stretching the game from the left and Fernandes dictating behind the striker.
If he has already made that call, he kept it to himself on a night when Fernandes also found the net and the attacking options all looked sharp.
“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.”
Sabah FK will not define United’s season. Manchester City might. And as the derby looms, the question hangs over Old Trafford: does Carrick lean on the familiar fluidity of Cunha, or double down on the new, imposing reality of United with Benjamin Sesko leading the line?
