Following the 2-2 draw between Manchester United and Spurs, Benjamin Sesko has been amidst the backlash from ex-professionals.
The game on Saturday was a very even competition, and despite Bryan Mbeumo latching onto a lovely cross by Amad to find the opener, both sides found it quite difficult to break each other down for the first hour or so. As the game came closer to the latter stages, the play started to open up much more, allowing more opportunity for the attackers.
Tottenham Hotspur took advantage of this opening as Mathys Tel and Richarlison scored in the 84th minute and the 91st minute, respectively, to completely turn the game on its head.
Benjamin Šeško entered the fray off the bench just before the hour mark with his side in the lead, and despite getting involved in the play with his 16 touches and three touches inside the Spurs penalty area, the striker struggled to make any sort of impact on the game.
Mason Mount played Šeško in on goal, but a brilliant tackle from Micky van de Ven stopped the former RB Leipzig centre forward from netting his third goal in a United shirt. After the tackle, Šeško was forced off with a knee injury and United went down to 10 men.
Alan Shearer slams Benjamin Sesko
Šeško became a hot topic after the game against Spurs, and not for a good reason. Fans highlighted two key moments in the game where Šeško was played in behind Spurs’ back line, both times by a perfect ball from Mount; however, the striker was unable to capitalise on either chance.
Alan Shearer shared his opinions on BBC Match of the Day, claiming: “Šeško struggled again. He came on today with just over half an hour to go, had two really good chances and should’ve scored, to be honest.
“I know he’s struggling for confidence, but (when he’s in on goal), I don’t think he has a clue what he wants to do. Those are two chances at this level that you must put away. It’s a big must do better.”
To make matters worse for him in the game, Šeško exited the pitch with a knee injury, despite his team having no more remaining substitutions available, meaning they had to see out the game with 10 men.
The 6’5″ striker left the field at the moment Spurs won a corner, which resulted in the equaliser, giving them momentum to find another seven minutes later.
If it weren’t for Matthijs de Ligt coming to Manchester United’s rescue late on, Šeško’s poor performance and early exit would have been met with much more severe backlash.
English media unsure about Sesko
This is not the first time that Šeško has caught the attention of an ex-player, with United’s own Gary Neville being one of the first to voice his worries about the Slovenian.
He claimed last week that the striker was “well off it”; fans believed that this was a very harsh analysis of the player, as Neville disregarded all of the positives around Šeško, with his good link-up play and glimpses of technical ability.
However, Neville’s criticisms are somewhat valid as the game against Tottenham did mark four games without a goal for the centre forward, something that all goal scorers would be disappointed with.
The injury may be a blessing in disguise for Šeško, as he can spend some time out of the spotlight before returning to the squad from the bench, ready to make an impact.
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