Should Benjamin Šeško be given a starting role?

Old Trafford has waited 13 years for a centre-forward capable of re-igniting title dreams, and the early evidence suggests the wait may finally be over. Benjamin Šeško, signed from RB Leipzig on 9 August 2025 for an initial €76.5 million, has spent the majority of his maiden Premier League campaign watching from the bench, yet no player has scored more non-penalty goals in the competition since the calendar flipped to 2026.

The 22-year-old Slovenian’s introduction to English football was anything but serene. Three defeats in his first three starts—against Manchester City, Grimsby Town and Brentford—left questions hanging in the Manchester rain. A first United goal against Brentford on 27 September hinted at better days, only for a knee injury sustained in the 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur to stall his momentum for more than a month.

Since returning, Šeško has been deployed as Michael Carrick’s impact weapon. The pattern is well-established: enter after 70 minutes, tilt the game, decide the result. He levelled at West Ham with a deft late flick, struck a 94th-minute winner against Fulham and broke Everton’s resistance with a solo counter-attacking finish. In total, the striker has five non-penalty league goals in 2026—more than any other player—despite totalling fewer than 400 minutes.

The numbers are impossible to ignore, yet so is United’s form. Carrick’s side have taken 16 points from the last 18 available and sit fourth, within striking distance of Aston Villa above and clear of Chelsea and Liverpool below. Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbuemo and Amad Diallo have helped craft that run, complicating the manager’s calculus.

Šeško’s pedigree, however, is emphatic. After leaving Slovenia at 16 he scored 22 goals in 44 games for Salzburg’s reserves, then 29 in 79 for the senior side while collecting three Austrian Bundesliga crowns. At Leipzig he tallied 18 goals in 42 matches during the 2023/24 season—highlighted by a DFL-Super Cup triumph over Bayern Munich—and followed up with 21 goals and six assists in 2024/25, finishing as club top scorer and finding the net against Juventus, Atlético Madrid, Dortmund, Sporting, Eintracht Frankfurt and a Bayern side he breached twice.

United have not possessed a striker with that combination of size, mobility and cold-blooded finishing since Robin van Persie’s title-winning 2012/13 campaign. The question now is whether Carrick trusts the hot hand off the bench or unleashes Šeško from the opening whistle, potentially reshaping a top-four race that remains delicately poised.

With 12 matches remaining and Champions League qualification at stake, the next team sheet could define both United’s season and the immediate trajectory of their record Slovenian signing. One thing already feels certain: Benjamin Šeško no longer looks like a project—he looks like a solution.