According to every single transfer news reporter out there, Benjamin Šeško to Manchester United is all but official. He’ll cost about £70m guaranteed with £5m of potential add-ons.
The 6’5” tall jump king is an outrageously talented header of the ball, has some bonkers shot power, and is very fast for his size. I don’t think there’s a striker in world football with a higher physical ceiling. He has also not yet turned in anything approaching £70m production with RB Leipzig.
Šeško just doesn’t get that many shots. He also provides no dribbling, passing, or assisting value to his team. He is all tools. All potential. If Man United gets exactly this level of production from him, they will feel like they made a bad deal. They’re betting on him improving these numbers by a lot.
The Transfer Flow
The last time Manchester United bet on an elite athlete improving under them despite having no record of great production at striker is when they bought Rasmus Højlund for almost the exact same fee.
Højlund has not worked out, and is now being moved on to make room for Šeško. Some reports say the asking price is £40m, but I can’t imagine they’re going to get it. Would you pay £40m for a striker with this kind of shooting output?
Instead, a conflicting report that AC Milan will take Højlund on loan with an option — not an obligation — to buy, is much more in line with the Dane’s recent level of production. This likely does not make a difference for United’s ability to sign more players under PSR; United needs to get about £35m for Højlund to break even on amortization, so a loan does the same thing for their accounting this year as a sale at that price.
I do think Man United just got better, but there are so many huge what ifs still to answer, and problems left to solve.
And if Šeško is nothing more than Designer Brand Højlund, they’re going to find themselves in this exact same spot 2 years from now.