Man Utd dealt Benjamin Sesko blow as striker's comeback is delayed

Bitter blow for United boss

Amorim has revealed the Slovenian striker, a £74 million ($98.8m) summer signing from RB Leipzig has suffered a recent bout of food poisoning which will delay his comeback beyond the originally anticipated date. Sesko's absence has been keenly felt, particularly as United are set to lose key forwards Bryan Mbeumo and Amad Diallo to the Africa Cup of Nations, leaving the squad short on attacking options. The ongoing uncertainty surrounding Sesko's fitness puts immense pressure on other available forwards like Joshua Zirkzee and Matheus Cunha. And his agent, Elvis Basanovic, has noted Sesko is "impatient" to return.

Amorim: 'We have to see'

Speaking to the press ahead of the clash with Bournemouth on Monday evening, Amorim said: "(Harry) Maguire is out, (Matthijs) De Ligt is out, Ben (Sesko) we have to see. We have to see if he's available, he has some food poisoning but let's wait, we have two training sessions still."

Sesko agent: 'We will see him on the pitch very soon'

Speaking earlier this week, Sesko’s representative Basanovic told Slovenian broadcaster Arena Sport: "Benjamin feels very good, his rehabilitation is going according to plan. He can’t wait to get back on the pitch. He’s missing matches, he’s a little impatient and we hope that he will return soon, to be where he feels best again. It’s hard to say exactly (when he will return), it will ultimately be decided by the medical service and the coach. I think we will see him on the pitch very soon. Maybe sooner than it seems at the moment."

And on Sesko’s relationship with boss Amorim, Basanovic added: “I must say he (Amorim) received Benjamin excellently. I think Ruben is first of all, an excellent person with fantastic charisma, extremely intelligent, emotionally intelligent and I think he knows what he’s doing. I believe he’s in a difficult situation. It’s not easy to build such a project that requires enormous knowledge and amount of time. United is one of the biggest clubs in the world, if not the biggest and people don’t understand you need time. But I think every team being built needs time. Just look at [Matheus] Cunha, Mbeumo and Sesko: they have played very few matches together.

"And I think that they especially need games and they need to develop certain automatisms because then it’s much easier. When you have these automatisms, you don’t need to think where a player is or runs but that you start automatically. Then the results come and everything looks much better."

Bournemouth up next for United

United face a demanding festive schedule with four Premier League matches leading up to the New Year and begin their run with a home match against Bournemouth on. The Cherries have become a banana skin for United in recent meetings and are winless in their last four Premier League games against them. But Amorim's side are in a good vein of form after a rocky start to the season, having lost just one of their last nine league games, with the defeat being the recent 1-0 at home to Everton. They then travel to Villa Park to face Aston Villa on December 21st and their Boxing Day fixture (which is the only top-flight game that day) sees them host Newcastle United at Old Trafford. And they round off 2025 with another home game against Wolves on December 30th.