Manchester United target Benjamin Sesko justified links to Europe’s top sides in a pre-season friendly against Liverpool on Wednesday evening. The teenager delighted the crowd by flummoxing two Reds stars with a single skill move, and he also opened the scoring by capping off a slick RB Salzburg attack.
United are reportedly alongside Newcastle, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund in registering an interest in Sesko, who broke through into the Salzburg first team last season. Although his return of five league goals was a modest one, he has already notched two in two this time around and continued his fine form against Liverpool.
Just after the half-hour mark, Sesko began a powerful run towards the Reds’ box before playing a one-two and finishing calmly past Adrian. He earned more approving nods before the interval by consciously drawing in Curtis Jones and James Milner before wriggling between them with an eye-catching heel-to-heel skill move.
Salzburg stood firm over the course of 90 minutes and Sesko’s goal proved to be the winner, despite big guns such as Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz and Virgil van Dijk emerging from the bench.
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United are yet to open talks for Sesko, but have supposedly placed him on a list of stars they admire before their striker hunt heats up. Ajax forward Antony has been heavily linked to a reunion with Erik ten Hag all summer, but with the Dutch club already having parted with a host of their top players, the Red Devils could find themselves priced out.
Salzburg are reportedly keen to keep hold of Sesko for the season, with the 6ft 4in youngster threatening to burst onto the scene and become a household name. In response to a tweet outlining United’s interest in the Slovenian international, Salzburg’s Twitter account jokingly replied: “We want 300 million + Bruno.”
Another rangy frontman to be linked with the Red Devils is Stuttgart’s Sasa Kalajdzic. While Ten Hag is thought to be an admirer of the 25-year-old, the German club’s transfer chief Sven Mislintat claimed, earlier this month, that ‘no offers’ had been received.
“We’re in excellent talks with Sasa about his situation,” he added. “And for me it’s always important when they are there, that they give their all and he does that, you can see that in every training session.”