Manchester United target Benjamin Šeško has shown his skills in a 1-0 friendly defeat over Liverpool on Wednesday evening. His performance in the pre-season match has seen Red Bull Salzburg, over a course of tweets, demand £300 million and Bruno Fernandes for the player, then adding another £700 million and Fred the Red.
Jokes aside, the player left Liverpool midfielder James Milner for dead, which is something his tweets do for themselves, before running through on goal, laying off the ball to his right for his teammates to play it immediately back to him to beat the Liverpool goalkeeper. Of course, for the Liverpool fans ‘it was just a friendly and does not matter’.
It shows that Šeško is going to be a player on the trajectory of Erling Harland, who played for Salzburg between 2019 and 2020 where he scored 29 goals and seven assists in 27 appearances for the club. With the ongoing saga of Cristiano Ronaldo wanting to leave the club, United will need to sign a player to fill his place in the team.
Šeško would also add competition for Anthony Martial, who Erik ten Hag is expecting the best from this season but with just one striker in the squad, an injury would upset United’s season and Martial is prone to injury. It was suggested at the weekend after the initial reports suggesting that United were monitoring the player that £55 million would be his fee.
Obviously his performance against Liverpool will give Salzburg some clout when it comes to negotiating, if United do get that far as I am sure Ten Hag will have other targets with Ajax’s Antony, who will apparently now cost €100 million, which is a bit steep for him to say the least. I am sure there will be others on the Dutchman’s list.
The fact that Salzburg can joke on Twitter about the fee for the player is good as some of the ABUs won’t see the joke and will try to troll United supporters into believing that it really will cost £1 billion for Šeško this summer. Salzburg do want to keep the player for another season but will sell if their reported £55 million valuation is met.
United have so far signed Tyrell Malacia, Christian Eriksen and Lisandro Martinez so far this summer and still have a deal in the works for Frenkie de Jong, although that has become more complicated with almost every journalist out there having a different story. It is also believed that a right-back will be sought if Aaron Wan-Bissaka can be sold.
Ten Hag has a big job on his hands this summer and with four pre-season matches done with three victories and a draw; beating Liverpool 4-0, Melbourne Victory 4-1 and Crystal Palace 3-1 with a 2-2 draw against Aston Villa. The Dutchman’s side will face Atletico Madrid in Oslo on Saturday and Rayo Vallecano at Old Trafford on Sunday.
If United can sign a striker this summer, one that will offer longevity and not a stop-gap signing, I believe United will be on a better road this coming season than they were a year ago. Ronaldo’s time at the club came to an end in 2009 and last season was a chance to see him again, but problems arrived almost as soon as he did. Not that it was all his fault.
Written by John Walker
