Paul Merson says Man Utd should have signed £99m valued striker instead of Benjamin Sesko

Add as preferred source on Google

Manchester United secured a long-term starting striker over the summer in the form of Benjamin Sesko, but he hasn’t hit the ground running.

Despite costing £66m up front in the summer transfer window, Benjamin Sesko is well and truly a long-term project.

Sesko will take time to settle into Premier League football, which is expected; however, Ruben Amorim will want to see goals start piling up from the Slovenian in the near future.

Sesko is part of United’s future spine, but even though he hasn’t started scoring, he has shown enough signs to give faith that this will eventually come.

After being ignored by his teammates in promising goal-scoring positions against Chelsea, Rio Ferdinand has urged Sesko to be more assertive, telling the striker to make it clear to Amad and others that they need to find him.

However, despite the positives, Paul Merson is not convinced by Ineos’ striker signing.

• READ MORE: Who are INEOS? Exploring Man Utd co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s billion-pound business

Paul Merson says Manchester United should have signed Julian Alvarez this summer

Sesko’s potential to be one of the world’s best is obvious; however, right now, he is a work in progress.

Despite the improved attacking quality around the number nine, Sesko hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to score, with creativity at the number nine still struggling despite having the highest xG in the entire league.

Speaking about Sesko in his SportsKeeda predictions column, Merson admitted that the Slovenian needs better service and recommended that Julian Alvarez was a better option.

“Benjamin Sesko needs better service to score goals. Manchester United are not playing the kind of football that suits him. Bryan Mbeumo wants to score goals, and Matheus Cunha likes to dribble. I don’t expect either of them to drift wide and swing in crosses for Sesko.

“I honestly don’t know where Sesko will get his first goal from at the moment, and it’s a massive worry for United. They should have gone for a striker like Julian Alvarez; that type of player would have worked well with Mbeumo and Cunha.”

Alvarez is a sensational footballer and is absolutely a better striker right now than Sesko, but if Amorim can extract Sesko’s potential, that won’t be the case for long.

• READ: From £2m blunder to £66m deal, Benjamin Sesko to Man Utd full timeline as Red Devils strike it fourth time lucky

Julian Alvarez would have scored lots of goals for Manchester United

Signing Alvarez would be no easy feat, with CIES‘ value tool placing him at a cheapest price of £99m, or as high as £114m.

This is a very expensive deal, but with four goals and one assist in six games, Atletico Madrid would be justified in demanding it.

At United, Alvarez would have scored plenty in a front three that could spend the entire 90 minutes interchanging with all three capable of scoring and assisting.

However, once he settles in, Sesko could also bring this goal and assist threat, as we saw with his knock on the Mbeumo against Chelsea, which won the penalty.

Goals will begin to flow soon for United. When that happens, Sesko will be at the forefront, and nobody will be naming other signings the club could have made.