Ruben Amorim backs ‘control freak’ Benjamin Sesko after Gary Neville criticism | OneFootball

Ruben Amorim has backed “control freak” Benjamin Sesko to succeed at Manchester United after Gary Neville claimed the striker was “well off it” compared to United’s other summer signings.

United splashed out around £207.2 million to bring in three new forward players during the summer transfer window.

Matheus Cunha (Wolves) and Bryan Mbeumo (Brentford) were followed by Sesko (RB Leipzig) in a deal that could reach £73.7m.

However, the striker has been slower to settle at Old Trafford than the Premier League-proven pair.

The 22-year-old has scored twice in his first 11 appearances and former captain Neville said after last weekend’s 2-2 draw at Nottingham Forest that he looks “awkward” and “well off it” compared to the other two signings.

“I’m relaxed,” Amorim said of Sesko’s start to life at United. “He’s not relaxed.

“What I mean is that I understand how things are in football and he’s going to struggle. That is normal.

The 22-year-old has scored twice in his first 11 appearances (PA Wire)

“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. 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, wants to control everything, and he’s not going to control everything.

“When I started 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, so I’m quite relaxed with that.

“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.”

Amorim’s “control freak” comment seems to refer to the player’s thoroughness, with the Slovenia international typically arriving at 8am to use the hyperbaric chamber before training, and frequently among the last players to depart around 4pm.

Amorim hopes that determination to succeed means he will see comments such as Neville’s for what they are.

“Of course nobody likes to hear, but he struggled a little bit and that is a fact, so let’s embrace that,” he said ahead of Saturday’s trip to Tottenham.

“I try to explain to the players that it’s not personal. It’s an opinion that is going to change in three weeks.

“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.

“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 he wants to succeed, so he’s going to succeed.”