Should Benjamin Sesko choose Manchester United or Newcastle United?

Manchester United and Newcastle United have made substantial offers to RB Leipzig for striker Benjamin Sesko.

Newcastle’s first bid of €75million (£65.5m; $86.9m) plus €5m in potential add-ons was deemed insufficient but they increased their offer on Monday night to at least €80m. Then, on Tuesday, Manchester United proposed a deal worth €75m plus another €10m in achievable extras.

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Leipzig are yet to accept or reject those latest offers but if they are both deemed sufficient, it will come down to which club the 22-year-old would rather join.

Manchester United are the global giants of the two, and believe Sesko wants to go to them. But they finished 24 points behind Newcastle in the Premier League last season, missing out on European football for 2025-26 entirely, while Eddie Howe’s side qualified for the Champions League.

Mark Critchley, Jacob Whitehead and Sebastian Stafford-Bloor weigh up which move makes most sense — or if the 22-year-old might be better off staying at Leipzig until summer 2026.

What are the reasons to join Manchester United?

Perhaps the only compelling football-related attraction is Manchester United’s greater stature.

Even after a decade of underperformance and mediocrity, players are still drawn to the prestige of being a Manchester United player.

Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha, their two senior-level summer signings so far, both cited their childhood memories of Sir Alex Ferguson’s sides — watching that team dominate English football or wearing a shirt with Cristiano Ronaldo’s name on the back — as their reason for choosing Old Trafford.

Cunha said Manchester United’s historical success was a deciding factor in choosing the club (Manchester United via Getty Images)

Sesko was still 10 days short of his fifth birthday on the night of the 2007-08 Champions League final, when Manchester United beat Chelsea on penalties, so his memories of the Ferguson era are unlikely to be as vivid. Almost two decades later, Manchester United’s status as one of the biggest clubs in world football has endured, and for many players, the challenge of restoring the club to those heights is enticing.

Mark Critchley

What are the reasons to join Newcastle?

The most important is Howe. Newcastle’s head coach has a track record of improving players, even big-money signings — look at the development of Alexander Isak, Bruno Guimaraes, Anthony Gordon and Joelinton under him. All have gone up in value since joining Newcastle — how many players can say the same at Manchester United?

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Sesko is also guaranteed opportunities at Newcastle.

The club’s message all summer has been that Isak is not for sale but it is easy to see how Sesko’s arrival could allow the Swede to move to Liverpool, meaning that, with Callum Wilson now at West Ham, the newcomer’s only striker rival would be Will Osula, who is both younger than him and even less of the finished article. He could also continue playing Champions League football after four straight years in that competition with Red Bull Salzburg and then Leipzig.

Throw in the slightly lower-profile spotlight in the north east of England, where he would likely be afforded a few more months to adapt to the league and take on Howe’s instructions, and there are far more reasons to believe that St James’ Park represents a greater chance of success for Sesko than moving to Old Trafford.

Jacob Whitehead

What are the reasons not to join Manchester United?

Sesko need only look at last season’s Premier League table.

Manchester United’s 15th-place finish was their lowest in 51 years. Combined with losing the Europa League final to Tottenham Hotspur, it means they will be without European football this season for the first time since 2014-15. Not only can Newcastle offer him top-tier Champions League football this season, it is far from guaranteed that Ruben Amorim’s Mancunians will return to the European elite soon.

If Sesko picks Old Trafford, he will be signing up to a project that has shown scant evidence of sustained progress, under a head coach who has little margin for error and has publicly entertained the prospect of leaving less than a year after taking the job.

An optimistic mood and some positive performances on Manchester United’s pre-season tour in America suggest all that could still change for the better. No Europe means Amorim will spend his first full season in charge with time to work with his squad on his 3-4-2-1 system in training.

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For a young striker, these are uncertain times to walk into a turbulent club.

Mark Critchley

What are the reasons not to join Newcastle?

Recruitment has been difficult for Newcastle this summer. Anthony Elanga and Aaron Ramsdale have joined but several other high-profile targets publicly turned them down and signed elsewhere.

An already thin squad will face more matches this season thanks to the Champions League, leaving concerns over whether Newcastle have the depth to compete on multiple fronts.

Anthony Elanga scored against Arsenal in a friendly last month but is Newcastle’s only outfield signing this summer (Lampson Yip – Clicks Images/Getty Images)

Manchester United’s larger revenues also mean they can afford higher salaries than Newcastle, helping explain why Mbeumo spurned his chance to move to the north east. Newcastle’s strict wage structure limits their top-end dealmaking, and the commercial profile of playing for Manchester United offers more money-making opportunities.

Jacob Whitehead

How well does he match what Amorim wants?

The centre-forward who has performed best under Amorim is undoubtedly Viktor Gyokeres, who scored 43 goals in 50 appearances during the 2023-24 campaign at Sporting CP, their only full season together at the Lisbon club.

Plenty of those goals came via Gyokeres latching onto through balls and using his speed in the channels to dart behind defences.

Possessing a rare blend of size, speed and athleticism, Sesko could perform a similar role and make the most of Bruno Fernandes’ direct, ambitious style of playmaking. That said, Amorim has repeatedly insisted he wants Manchester United to learn how to play slower and with more control during this pre-season, so Sesko would also need to be comfortable dropping deeper to link up play.

Mark Critchley

How well does he match what Howe wants?

Ultimately, Sesko is not Isak. Howe had his perfect striker already.

Sesko works well out of possession and has the versatility to split wide in attack, traits that the Newcastle head coach admires. Like Isak, the raw physical traits are there — the doubt is whether the young man can unlock them. Though Howe has previously demonstrated the ability to polish this type of player.

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His main focus would be increasing the number of ‘scrappy’, poacher’s goals Sesko scores, which was the major development in Isak’s game over the past two years.

Jacob Whitehead

What else should he consider at Manchester United?

If the club’s size and stature remain a pull factor, those factors go hand-in-hand with a level of scrutiny matched by few other sides in world football.

Sesko would likely replace Rasmus Hojlund as Amorim’s first-choice striker, only two years after he joined Manchester United from Atalanta at age 20 for a similarly large initial fee of £64.2million. After showing some early promise, particularly in Champions League games, Hojlund suffered several barren spells in front of goal and by the end of last season, his confidence was sapped. He scored just four times in the 2024-25 Premier League.

Sesko would not necessarily be doomed to the same fate, but the spotlight trained on whoever is playing as Manchester United’s No 9 is bright and unforgiving. That can prove difficult for young strikers, but it is a challenge Sesko will have to rise to if he decides to accept it.

Mark Critchley

What else should he consider at Newcastle?

There are competing kinds of pressure at play here. At Manchester United, the size of the club and the scale of the rebuild are imposing, but joining Newcastle would also present challenges, especially given he would very possibly be viewed as Isak’s replacement.

He might not be expected to immediately reproduce Isak’s 27 goals in all competitions last season but even 15 would be a significant ask for somebody’s Premier League debut year. At Newcastle, his signing would have to work, while Manchester United’s financial superiority means they can eat transfer-market failures and move on without torpedoing entire summers of spending.

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It is natural for a player to back their own ability — but it is a flight of fancy to imagine that Sesko will be eased into any situation if he moves on.

Jacob Whitehead

Is there a case for staying at Leipzig?

Very much so.

Sesko is still developing and while he performed reasonably in the 2024-25 season, he has not proved he can really dominate the Bundesliga. Partly, that’s owing to the team around him — Leipzig have endured a difficult, transitional couple of years since he joined them in summer 2023 — but it also reflects that he has work to do individually. He needs to develop physically (growing into his 195cm/near 6ft 5in frame), score more frequently and could benefit from another season at a lower level than the Premier League.

Leipzig are confident for the season ahead. Ole Werner has been appointed as head coach and has impressed everyone during the summer, while the additions of Johan Bakayoko and Yan Diomande have reshaped a squad that Sesko could do worse than remain be part of.

Sebastian Stafford-Bloor

(Top photo: Ulrik Pedersen/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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