Amorim expertly agrees with Neville on ‘awkward’ ‘control freak’ Sesko in bid to avoid Man Utd repeat | OneFootball

Ruben Amorim could easily have defended Benjamin Sesko to the hilt after Gary Neville took the Manchester United striker to task this week. Instead he agreed with the pundit while backing the summer signing to come good, displaying the sort of man-management the Red Devils fans will be praying prevents the £66m man from walking the same bleak path to obscurity as his predecessor at Old Trafford.

Sesko has two goals and an assist in 11 appearances for United and Neville said after their 2-2 draw with Nottingham Forest last weekend that “he’s well off it” compared to fellow big-money forwards signings Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo.

Neville said: “I’m no further forward with him. The jury is out.

“He’s well off it compared to the other summer signings that Man United made up front in [Matheus] Cunha and [Bryan] Mbeumo.

“He looks awkward, he had a couple of really good opportunities in the first half when balls got played over the top and his touch wasn’t quite right.

“For 80 million pound, you can say he’s young, has a lot of potential and is only just settling in, but you still want to see a bit more.”

The typical response to such criticism being aimed at a young footballer signed for a a big transfer fee from abroad, as Arne Slot has said in defence of Florian Wirtz in particular this season, is the need for time to adapt to the rigours of the Premier League.

But rather than handing Sesko that get-out clause, Amorim backed Neville’s assertion, claiming the United legend’s comments weren’t opinion but “fact”.

“I’m relaxed. He’s not relaxed,” Amorim said when asked about the striker’s form. “I understand how things are in football and he’s going to struggle – that is normal.

“He has no experience here, and then the first impact when everyone says that you are so good, you are the next big thing – and you hear about that with Sesko – and then you come to one club that is the hardest club.

“If you don’t perform every week, you are going to hear a lot of things from club legends, from pundits, from the media, and sometimes they are right.

“To have the ability to understand that is normal and still maintain your level of confidence is really hard for a young kid, especially for a young kid that is a control freak.

“He wants to control everything, and he’s not going to control everything. Of course, nobody likes to hear it, but he struggled a little bit and that is a fact.

“So let’s embrace that. It’s not personal, it’s not nothing. That is what I try to explain to the players.

“That is not personal. It’s an opinion that is going to change in three weeks. Everything that is true today, in three weeks could be a lie.”

Other than a brief reference to having “no experience” there are no caveats here. Amorim has essentially, gently told Sesko that he’s not been good enough, to take criticism that every Manchester United footballer will experience at some stage of their Old Trafford career on the chin and recognise that opinions – or indeed “facts” – can change in an instant in modern football.

Sesko need only consider how United as a whole have gone from crisis club to Champions League qualification hopefuls in the space of a month, and may very well be in crisis once again should they lose to Tottenham on Saturday, to understand how volatile the narrative can be and take a more relaxed stance with regard to his form.

Amorim added: “So of course, it’s hard to hear. But my advice to Ben is you are going to get used to it, and then it’s going to be natural. It’s going to be like your Monday here.

“So that is part of the process and we are going to help him, and we are going to protect Ben because he works really hard and we want to succeed. So he’s going to succeed.

“When I start training with Ben, he has more potential than I was thinking. He’s going to struggle and we need to understand how he likes to play also to put in our ideas.

“He is going to be our striker for the long term. But he’s going to have these struggles and these bumps during the ride, and that is a normal thing in football.”

Sesko, Amorim and United will be desperate to avoid him going the same way as Rasmus Hojlund, who was similarly heralded before he arrived a the club, and indeed for most of his first season at Old Trafford, as “the next big thing”.

But Amorim never gave Hojlund the same “striker for the long term” vote of confidence he’s bestowed upon Sesko, whom the United boss is managing expertly, at least publicly, by insisting he will be The Man for Manchester United but agreeing with Neville over a long road yet to travel, taking the sting out of the pundit’s criticism in the process.