Hello! Welcome to a brand new column from me, Ian Irving, host of the Talk of the Devils podcast. Every Saturday during the season, I will bring you the biggest talking points from the Talk of the Devils team, along with the best of our Manchester United content from across our channels. Let me know your views and be sure to give the podcast a watch or a listen.
In the still pristine tunnel area of Hill Dickinson Stadium on Monday night, reporters were leaning against the glass wall of the tunnel club, queuing up to interview Michael Carrick. They all had one question they wanted to ask: “Has Benjamin Sesko done enough now to start?”
But the United head coach seemed to softly smile each time he was asked, and gave the same type of measured response we are becoming used to. Carrick talked of the “adjustment” and “patience” it can take with players in their first season at the club. Crucially, he made clear that Sesko “understands the situation”.
The striker and senior coaching staff have spoken at great length in these first few weeks about how exactly the 22-year-old will be used and supported in his adjustment.
In an interview in the autumn, Sesko talked about how he has been coping with the transition to Old Trafford, emphasising that the mental challenge is almost as big as the physical adaptation to the Premier League.
To demonstrate, his following on Instagram exploded almost overnight when he arrived in England, gaining one million followers in just a few days. A modern measure of the extra eyes on a Manchester United striker.
To cope, Sesko practices box-breathing to calm himself, a technique involving four four-second phases of breathing in, holding your breath before exhaling, and then holding again. He would have done it before entering the match on Monday. The striker also meditates daily and does yoga sessions three times a week.
People close to the squad say there has been no sign of Sesko being negatively affected by being named on the bench; in fact, quite the opposite. I watched on Monday night just after half-time as Carrick asked him and Joshua Zirkzee to warm up.
I was too far away to hear exactly what was said, but while Zirkzee took his time zipping his jacket and making his way down off the benches, Sesko took off the second he was called, sprinting down the touchline, clearly eager to get into the action.
He didn’t run quite as fast as that dash for the winner, which was clocked at 35.3 kilometres an hour by Opta, before his emphatic finish reignited the post-match debate about his place in the side.
Sesko was at full tilt at Everton (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
It was the main topic of Thursday’s Talk of the Devils, after 81% of fans polled on our YouTube channel said they wanted Sesko to start against Crystal Palace on Sunday. But viewer Ian said: “You should have had a 3rd choice (in the poll): the manager is in the best position to decide.”
And he has a point. There was already a mini clamour before Monday for Sesko to start after he salvaged a draw against West Ham with his stoppage-time strike. Carrick ignored it, deciding not to change a formula up front that has ended up producing five wins and a draw from his first six matches back in the dugout. It’s hard to argue with that record.
Andy Mitten said on the pod that maybe this is the best use of Sesko for now. Compare how Sesko’s minutes are being managed to Rasmus Hojlund’s last season, for instance. By this stage of the campaign, he’d already played 38 matches for club and country and was in the middle of a scoring drought that would stretch for 21 appearances. We made the argument at the time that he was struggling and needed more support. Perhaps he was being given too much expectation and pressure before he was ready? There’s less than three months in age between Hojlund and Sesko.
At the start of the season, I interviewed Ruben Amorim and he made clear that that sort of pressure should not be on the new Slovenian striker, but instead should be carried by the more experienced signings of Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha.
“Bryan and Matheus have more responsibility than Benjamin. I want Benjamin to have more time to feel the team. He’s younger, it’s a new club, a new country.”
Six months on, it feels like Michael Carrick agrees.
Will cost of Amorim influence next manager choice?
The latest financial results this week revealed it could end up costing the club over £37million ($50m) to appoint and sack Ruben Amorim and his staff.
As Mark Critchley reported on The Athletic, United’s full second-quarter results for 2025 suggest the full compensation package for making the managerial change this January could reach £15.9m.
When you take into account the £11m that was paid to Sporting CP to take him away from Portugal and then the £10.4m that was paid to Erik ten Hag and his coaches to make way for Amorim’s arrival, it all adds up to a very expensive decision.
You wonder what impact that final figure could have on the decision over the next head coach. I wrote in this column earlier this month about how each week will reveal more and more to aid United’s decision on who will be the next permanent head coach, and the lack of any compensation considerations could be a boost to Michael Carrick’s chances.
The cost of hiring and firing Amorim could be over £37m (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
The likes of Roberto De Zerbi and Xavi are out of work, and the USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino will be out of contract by the summer, so compensation to clubs or countries would also not be due. But others, such as Luis Enrique and Julian Nagelsmann, would be different.
Enrique is under contract at PSG until 2027 and Nagelsmann with Germany until 2028. Compensation would be due to take them away from their current roles. Thomas Tuchel’s two-year contract extension with England, announced a couple of weeks ago, makes him a more unlikely and more expensive prospect, too.
The results on the pitch obviously will be and should be the club’s biggest consideration in deciding who is next, but the finances involved could prove a factor.
Red all over: what you might have missed
- While the win at Everton moved the team up into the top four, victory in United’s final match of February last season only moved them up to 14th in the Premier League table. It’s a stark comparison and despite the turnaround, maybe only now are fans beginning to finally feel differently watching games and begin to trust this team again, as Andy and Carl Anka debated on the pod this week.