Sesko Injury Deepens Manchester United's Season Struggles
Manchester United’s stuttering start to the season has taken another hit, and this one strikes right at the heart of their thin attack.
Benjamin Sesko, the £74 million summer signing from Leipzig, is sidelined again with a leg problem that refuses to go away. The Slovenian striker, signed to be a long-term focal point up front, missed the entire pre-season after first suffering the injury at the back end of last campaign. Now the same issue has resurfaced, and patience around Old Trafford is already wearing thin.
The concern isn’t just inside the club. Two men who know United’s standards better than most, Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt, made no attempt to hide their frustration.
Sesko initially picked up the injury after a kick to his leg during the win over Liverpool in May. United still pushed through with the deal in the summer of 2025, but the early return has been bleak: no pre-season, a stop-start introduction to competitive action, and now another spell out just as the season is trying to take shape.
He did at least get on the pitch. Sesko started in the Champions League against Sabah and led the line again in the Carabao Cup defeat to Brighton. In the league, Michael Carrick used him from the bench in United’s first four matches, a gradual integration that hinted at a bigger role to come.
Then, suddenly, nothing.
Sesko was left out of the squad entirely for Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Fulham. He didn’t even travel to London as United scraped a point at Craven Cottage, and Carrick could offer no real clarity over the severity of the problem afterwards. Tests this week are expected to shape the club’s treatment plan, but the cloud of uncertainty only adds to the sense of drift.
For a team that chose not to sign another out-and-out striker, that uncertainty is brutal.
United went through the summer window without bringing in extra firepower through the middle, leaving Joshua Zirkzee as the only recognised alternative at centre-forward. His record — nine goals in 77 matches — hardly screams guaranteed goals, and the gamble on a lean striker department is already being exposed.
On the latest episode of “The Good, the Bad and the Football”, Butt didn’t hide his irritation at that decision before turning sharply towards the Sesko situation. The former midfielder, who came through United’s academy and understands the demands of the club, questioned how a side of this size could leave itself so short.
“The back four is a big problem, but for me, the bigger problem is the number 9. How can Manchester United have only one striker? Who is injured, and with what injury, is it a leg injury?”
Butt said, quoted by English newspaper Metro.
Scholes, never one to dress things up, cut in with a quip that carried a sting.
“How do you get injured in your leg? Isn’t that a broken leg? Can’t you just wear shin pads?”
he replied, a joke that doubled as a dig at the lack of information around Sesko’s condition.
Butt pushed the point further. “Either you break your leg, or you play. Wear shin pads or padding, I don’t quite understand it. It’s hard to discuss without knowing what it is.”
That last line is the crux of United’s problem. Nobody outside the club really knows what it is. Inside, they are waiting on scans. Outside, fans and former players see a £74 million striker missing pre-season, dipping in and out of the side, then vanishing from the squad entirely just weeks into the campaign.
For a club that once churned out ruthless, relentless centre-forwards, United now find themselves with one injured No 9, one unproven deputy, and a season already threatening to unravel before autumn has truly settled in.
