Manchester United's Striker Crisis Deepens with Sesko Setback

Manchester United’s season took another unwelcome twist with fresh concern over Benjamin Sesko’s fitness – and two club greats are already questioning the situation.

Sesko, a £74 million signing from Leipzig in the summer of 2025, has barely had a clear run since arriving. He missed the entire pre-season with a leg problem first suffered last term, an injury he picked up after a kick to the leg in May’s win over Liverpool.

He finally forced his way into Michael Carrick’s plans, starting in the Champions League against Sabah and in the Carabao Cup defeat to Brighton. In the league, he was used from the bench in United’s first four matches. Then, without warning, he disappeared from the squad altogether for Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Fulham at Craven Cottage.

He didn’t even travel to London. Carrick, asked to explain, could not give a clear update on how serious the latest setback is. Tests this week will determine the club’s next steps, but the timing could hardly be worse in what has already been a chaotic start to the campaign.

“How can Manchester United have only one striker?”

The injury has reignited a debate many supporters were having all summer: why did United gamble on going light up front?

The club chose not to bring in another out-and-out centre-forward in the transfer window, leaving Joshua Zirkzee – nine goals in 77 matches – as the only recognised alternative. That decision did not sit well with former midfielder Nicky Butt, who laid into the squad planning on the latest episode of “The Good, the Bad and the Football”.

“The back four is a big problem,” Butt said, quoted by English newspaper Metro, “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?”

The lack of clarity over Sesko’s condition clearly irked him. If the club’s only senior centre-forward option is sidelined and nobody can properly explain why, it points to a deeper unease around United’s recruitment and risk-taking.

Scholes and Butt question the injury

Paul Scholes, sitting alongside Butt, responded with his trademark dry edge. When the conversation turned to Sesko’s leg issue, he quipped that the Slovenian should “wear shin pads”.

“How do you get injured in your leg?” Scholes asked. “Isn't that a broken leg? Can't you just wear shin pads?”

Butt doubled down, taking a more old-school stance on playing through pain.

“Either you break your leg, or you play,” he said. “Wear shin pads or padding, I don't quite understand it. It's hard to discuss without knowing what it is.”

The pair were not dismissing Sesko personally so much as voicing frustration at the opacity around the injury and the fragility of United’s planning. For two men who came through an era of relentless competition for places, the idea of a club of United’s stature walking into a season with one established striker and a fitness question mark clearly grates.

A fragile plan exposed

United’s margin for error up front has vanished almost before the season has started. Sesko was supposed to be the statement signing, the focal point to grow with a new-look side. Instead, he has become the symbol of a fragile strategy: big money on a single hope, with little cover behind him.

Now the club waits on medical reports to see how long their marquee forward will be missing. The supporters, and the former players watching on, are left with a more uncomfortable question: how long can a club with Manchester United’s ambitions keep gambling like this?