Ruben Amorim offers three-word excuse after Gary Neville destroys Man Utd signing

Ruben Amorim offers three-word excuse after Gary Neville destroys Man Utd signing

Ruben Amorim has explained his handling of £74million signing Benjamin Sesko, whose early Manchester United appearances have been slammed by Sky Sports' Gary Neville

Benjamin Sesko has endured a slow start to life at Manchester United (Image: Getty Images)

Ruben Amorim has given a three-word reason for Benjamin Sesko’s early Manchester United struggles amid scathing criticism from Gary Neville. The £74million signing from RB Leipzig has come off the bench in United’s two Premier League games so far but made little impact, with Neville saying “he's nowhere near in terms of fitness.”

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Sesko is likely to make his first start for the club in Wednesday’s Carabao Cup tie at League Two Grimsby Town, where he will be hoping to top up his match sharpness and open his account for the club.

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Head coach Amorim has naturally jumped to Sesko’s defence. Speaking after the 1-1 draw at Fulham, where the 22-year-old replaced Casemiro early in the second half as part of a tactical switch, Amorim said: “He needs time.”

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The head coach added: “It's not easy to come off the bench when the game is really fast. He is learning the game is faster than the Bundesliga but he had some good connections with his team-mates.”

However, Neville is showing little patience with Sesko, with the Sky Sports pundit unleashing a damning critique of the striker’s condition. Speaking on his Sky Sports podcast, Neville said: “Sesko, at the moment, let's just say it, he's nowhere near in terms of fitness or just getting up to speed.

Ruben Amorim says Sesko needs time to adapt to the Premier League (Image: Zohaib Alam - MUFC/Manchester United via Getty Images)

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“Ruben Amorim said before the game that there is a clamour to play him. Last week, I was saying, 'Look, let's just get him straight in.’ He is going to have to get him in against Grimsby and give him 90 minutes.

"He's going to have to probably play him against Burnley next Saturday, just to get him going, because you can see he needs football. What you can't do is let a player of that value, that potential, just keep being on the bench.

“The problem he'll have is that he wants to keep [building] the team, but I think what you saw when they brought Sesko on, put Mount into midfield and took Casemiro off, they did get opened up and it looked like Fulham could score.”

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Gary Neville hasn't been impressed with Sesko so far (Image: Robert Smith/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Asked why he kept Sesko on the bench for the second straight game, Amorim explained: “We tried to imagine what is going to happen during the game.

“Our team needs to be consistent in the way that we control the game and we need to have options to play a different game on the bench. Sesko has had two weeks for us, he is trying to understand everything. We need to wait a little bit to help the player. We just want to win the game and try to help all of our players.”

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