Manchester United Thread 25/26 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 26.09.24

Truly is muppet season but if that were to happen would be a big upgrade

Donnarumma is one of those players that's very highly rated by casuals (furthered by some of his shot stopping performances in the CL knockouts) but there's a lot of scepticism around him by football data people. It's not universal that he's a best in class GK by any means.

Probably end up in Saudi Arabia anyway.

Raiola client. Always going to be complications like that. Demanded too much at AC Milan so left on a free. Possibly will be the case at PSG too, if they don’t sell him this summer.

I do very much worry about this potential Sesko transfer and feel this is like Højlund all over again

Get a very unproven youngster and hope he'll spear head our attack.

Like deja vu all over again

Spending so much money on such an unproven player is a big gamble but I havent seen enough of the Bundesliga to comment he he worth the cost but I did see him during the recent Euros and he left a lot to be desired but he wasn't in a great team to be fair

Then on the other side we have Watkins who I'm not the biggest fan of and his age means there's never going to be a re-sell on fee

There's really not a great choice of strikers out there that utd could feasible get

I don't think we'd need Sesko to be that prolific from the start. If he got only 10 PL goals, it'd be ok as long as his link up play was good and he brings the best out of Cunha, Mbuemo, Bruno etc. That alone would make him an enormous improvement over Hojlund.

Sesko is different to Hojlund though. He has been one of the top CF prospects in Europe for the last 4 years. Has been playing international football for that time and has a euros under his belt.

United have been tracking him for years. Weren't we looking at buying him before he went from Salzburg to Leipzig? The Hojlund deal seemed to kind of come out of nowhere. They saw a scandanvian player banging in a hat trick for Denmark and said oh we'll have a bit of that. This seems like a more thought out move and Vivell would surely know a lot about him.

If Watkins is for £40m spread out over a few years then that's the one to go for.

If Sesko is £60/65m and Watkins is looking like £50m/60m then I think Sesko is a far better buy.

He was 9th top goalscorer last season in the Bundesliga with 13 which isn't bad for a 21 year old in a team who finished 7th. Alan Shearer scored the same amount of league goals in the season when he was 21. That doesn't mean that Sesko will go on to have the same success as him but what are we really expecting from someone of that age?

There are question marks of course - it is a risk given the price and potentially needing to sign someone else if he doesn't work out (which would be a major headache) but there are reasons to be positive about him too. Vivell is pushing for him and he has worked with him before, so he must see something that justifies the gamble. Wilcox is on board. He is supposed to be great in the air, something we would really benefit from.

I don't blame people for making the Hojlund comparisons but it feels different. Højlund has 14 league goals in the last 2 seasons wheres Sesko had 14 in his first year in the Bundesliga. John Murtough was DOF with Richard Arnold above him when they signed Hojlund, they're not people that anyone would trust with that kind of investment anymore, I would expect. Hojlund feels like a big mistake at the moment anyway but it doesn't mean we should be afraid of signing young prospects ever again. Yoro is looking like he will be excellent. I would prefer if there was some 26/27/28 year old PL proven striker available for the striker position but if they go for Sesko I'll welcome it and hope for the best.

Fun Sesko fact...

He has scored 3 goals in 4 games vs Bayern and 2 goals, 1 assist in 4 vs Dortmund.

So handles the big stage well if nothing else.

Ornstein:

RB Leipzig asking price for Benjamin Sesko ~€75m guaranteed + add-ons & percentage of future sale.

All in probably £75M which is roughly €87M.

"percentage of future sale"???? After paying 75 million + add ons for him? WTAF!

It's united.... He will either be fantastic and retire with us or leave for small fee or be crap and leave for free. Not worried about sell on