Ruben Amorim admits Benjamin Sesko has ‘struggled’ in his first few months at Manchester United but admits he has been surprised by the striker’s potential.
United signed Sesko in a £74 million deal from RB Leipzig in the summer transfer window but the 22-year-old has scored just two goals in 11 appearances so far this season.
Last week, Sesko came under fire from former United defender Gary Neville, who claimed that the Slovenia international ‘looks awkward’.
Amorim, however, insists he is not concerned by the start Amorim has made at United and believes the striker is the club’s long-term solution.
‘I’m relaxed, he’s not relaxed,’ Amorim said.
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‘What I mean is I understand how things are in football and he’s going to struggle. That is normal, he has no experience here.
‘Then the first impact when everyone says that you are so good, you are the next big thing and you hear that with Sesko and then you come to one club that is the hardest club. If you don’t perform every week, you are going to hear a lot of things from club legends, from pundits, from the media, and sometimes they are right.
‘To have the ability and understand that is normal and still maintain your level of confidence is really hard for a young kid and especially for a young kid who is a control freak who wants to control everything, and he’s not going to control everything.
‘When I started training with Ben, he has more potential than I was thinking [but] we need to understand how he likes to play and also to put in our ideas.
‘I’m quite relaxed with that. He is going to be our striker for the long term but he’s going to have these struggles and these bumps during the ride. That is a normal thing in football.’
When asked about Neville’s claim that Sesko looked ‘well off it’ in United’s 2-2 draw away to Nottingham Forest last Saturday, Amorim replied: ‘Of course, nobody likes to hear but he struggled a little bit and that is a fact, so let’s embrace that.
‘It’s not personal, it’s not nothing. That is what I try to explain to the players. That it is not personal. It’s an opinion that is going to change in three weeks. Everything that is true today, in three weeks, could be a lie.
‘So of course, it’s hard to hear, but my advice to Ben is you are going to get used [to it]. And then it’s going to be natural. It’s going to be like your Monday here.
‘So that is part of the process, and we are going to help him and we are going to protect Ben because he works really hard and we want to succeed. So, he’s going to succeed.’
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