Scoring 27 goals and missing 18 excellent opportunities, Manchester United bought Sesco as a lottery player

Although the editor-in-chief of Mannon called Sesco "Manchester United's fourth choice", it was still very happy for Manchester United fans to suddenly intercept Newcastle and buy a very talented young man.

Cesco has height, disk and technology, and he can do a lot of things. But he is still very young and has a little ignorant in playing football and needs training. Before he really grew up, he might just look at the lottery-shaped magic striker who was lucky to shoot.

01. Manchester United spent 226 million euros to create a new trident: need patience with Sesco

a. Sesco is a slow-warming striker: he needs to be more patient in the first year

Sesco is a talented player who became famous at a young age. At the age of 14, he joined the Slovenian champion team Domzale with his performance of scoring 59 goals in 23 games. Many giants such as Manchester United, Manchester City, Bayern and Juventus had wanted to buy Sesco when he was young.

His final choice was to join Salzburg Red Bull, which owns Haaland, but he only scored 1 goal in 15 appearances in his first season, and at one point he could only follow the second team to compete in the secondary league. However, the turnaround came from the second year, when he scored 21 goals in one season and began to make his mark.

A year after going to Red Bull Leipzig, he also had a long period of adaptation in the Bundesliga. However, at the end of the league, he scored consecutively in the last seven rounds, becoming the youngest star in Bundesliga history.

In the second year of the Bundesliga, he also had a trough of only 1 goal in two months. Compared with Hoylen, Cesco will have stronger scoring ability, but may also be more unstable. Manchester United need to have more patience, at least not too high for Sesco in its first season.

b. Spend 226 million euros to create a new trident: Manchester United is too eager to have a stable scoring point

Although everyone knows that the team needs patience for the growth of young people. But Manchester United may really have a hard time doing this because their current record is always lower than expected.

The main reason for this is that the Manchester United striker's shooting efficiency is too low and the team has long lacked stable scoring points on the front line. From the Premier League statistics last season, we can see that the actual goal - expected goals, Manchester United ranks second to last, just better than Crystal Palace.

It is also for this reason that it has stimulated Manchester United's management and coaching staff. They spent 226 million euros to buy Cunia, Mbemo and Sesco to create a brand new Red Devils Trident.

You should know that in the past two years, Manchester United bought Hoylen and Zilker, which also cost more than 120 million euros. Both of them are still very young, but Manchester United is no longer patient. The situation in Sesco is likely to be similar to Hoylen and Zilkze.

Especially in the Premier League, for a striker, the pressure on physical confrontation will be greater. Sesco came to Old Trafford along the footsteps of his idol Ibrahimovic. It was never an easy thing for him to succeed.

02. Lottery-type magic striker: Success or failure depends on the fate of the kick

a. Cesco often has world waves: he is very confident in shooting

From the statistics, we can see that Manchester United chose Cesco and was ready to give up Hoylen. Because Hoylen only scored 4 goals in the Premier League last season, with an expected goal of 5.24, missing 6 excellent scoring opportunities. Even in the better-performing 2023-24 season, Hoylen scored 10 goals, much higher than expected 7.64 goals, but also missed 13 excellent scoring opportunities.

In contrast, Sesco has scored a lot more goals in the Bundesliga in the past two years than expected, and seems to be a striker with high scoring efficiency. However, it is also necessary to see that Cesco, who has scored 27 goals in the Bundesliga in the past two years, has also missed 18 excellent scoring opportunities.

His shooting data is beautiful because there are often world waves, which can widen the gap between actual goals and expected goals at once, but it is not much better than Hoylen in seizing good scoring opportunities.

Cesco's foot skills are good, he has the ability to turn to get rid of the ball. If the opponent is a little stunned for a moment, he will give him enough room to adjust, and Sesco's long-range shot level is very high.

Therefore, Sesco's continuous scoring in the second half of the league has a lot to do with his technical characteristics. After the opponent's attention is reduced, Cesco is likely to bring surprises. He has a high level of long shots and is often able to produce excellent works of power and angle. The key is that the force is very brittle, which is rare. The same is true for the goal

. After receiving the ball in the middle, it was very flexible and the opponent did not stick it up, so Sesco made a long shot of extremely high quality.

In contrast, the confrontation between Premier League defenders is stronger. For a big man like Sesco, there may not be many opportunities to give him calm footing. Unless he rushed like Haaland in the counterattack, it would not be so easy to get the ball and shoot with the defender easily.

b. Sesco often has world waves: he is very confident in shooting

However, Sesco's overall shooting efficiency is far less beautiful than in the highlights. If we compare the shooting data of the five major leagues last season with the European competition, we will find that Sesco's shooting rate is only 44.7%. However, with the frequent world-wide calculations, he can correct the shot/goal ratio to score 1 goal per 5 shots.

In comparison, Hoylen's shot rate is 49%, scoring 1 goal per 5.5 shots. Hoylen's biggest pain point was that he averaged only 1 shot per game in the Premier League last season. The few opportunities you get are the helplessness of the Danish striker. I don't know if Sesco can continue his magical shooting and scoring efficiency with a large variance after coming to Manchester United without many opportunities..

Last season, Red Bull Leipzig won the second draw in the Champions League, encountered giant teams in a row, and was eventually eliminated in the league stage. In fact, they only lost 1 goal in many games, such as facing Juventus and Inter Milan, they all have a chance to win.

Unfortunately, he played 11 at home and was reversed by Juventus while leading 2-1. Sesco got an excellent scoring opportunity in injury time, but he scored a push and shot without strength, which made the team missed the tie.

After Cesco came to Manchester United, perhaps fans would pray that he could score some world waves as soon as possible instead of missing some scoring opportunities first. Otherwise, the huge public opinion pressure will affect the mentality of young people and slowly lead him to a dead end.

Cesco's problem is not only a missed opportunity, but his movement and ball handling choices on some offensive ends are also relatively naive. Just like this time the teammates steal the ball, Cesco should run to the inside line to pick up the teammates and complete the pass.

In this way, the teammates who intercept the ball can reverse the depth and play 3 players to cooperate. But Sesco's actual movement is to run towards the far rear point, so that the teammates who follow up and get the ball in the second row need to show stronger personal abilities to "send cakes" to Sesco.

cannot be said that Sesco's running position this time is very wrong, but this also shows that he is not a middle attacker who can connect the offense and defense conversion, but more like a "running back". Although Sesco has good ability to dribble at the feet, his choices when converting offense and defense are average, making it difficult for him to shoulder more burdens.

This time, the Red Bull teammate of Leipzig grabbed the ball back for the second time and gave it to Sesco again. As a result, his choice was to shoot himself after cutting in, but he did not make a world wave, but just a normal long shot without power.

Cesco is still very immature in driving his teammates to launch offenses and does not know much about organizing offenses. He may be able to deliver a very creative pass, but he can set up a penultimate pass to the overall offense but has fewer passes.

Especially, he is very confident about his long shots, and sometimes his shot selection is not good, which is also the reason why his shot rate is low. Too often, the fate of shooting makes him more like a "lottery forward" than Hoylen.

03. Have talent under your feet: Can Sesco practice offensive and defensive conversions?

a. Talented under his feet: Sesco is a piece of rough jade

Hoylen's failure in the Premier League was also related to his inability to hold the ball in the Premier League. The success rate of the best is only 30%, which is why Hoylen plays like Haaland in Serie A but cannot play Warcraft effects in the Premier League.

In comparison, Cesco is not as fast as Hoylen, but he is more capable under his feet. As a big man of 1.95 meters, Sesco still loves to dribble the ball. However, it should be noted that when encountering confrontation, his mistake rate is actually very high.

Cesco's success rate on the ground one-on-one match in the Bundesliga is only 31%, which is 4 percentage points lower than that of Hoylen in the Premier League. Whether such a performance will further bottom out after entering the Premier League may also be the key to Sesco's success or failure at Manchester United.

Cesco doesn't just talk about it. In the game, he often has some amazing Ibrahimovic operations. The quality of the stopping this time is very high. The key is that the passing move after the stopping is even more ornamental.

Cesco, who is 1.95 meters tall, has a lot of room for future development due to his foot skills and ball sense. After all, he can not only control the ball on the spot, but also drive the ball forward.

Let's take a look at this continuous operation. The ball under your feet is so light to get rid of the steering, it's hard to believe that he is a big man. All of the above are due to Cesco's talent. He has such an advantage and can make people shine in the game.

Manchester United will also need a bridgehead that can hold the ball, but can Cesco really do it?

b. The pass difference is quite large, and it is difficult to make a good bridgehead

From the statistics, we can see that last season, Sesco assisted 5 times in the Bundesliga and the Champions League, 2.5 times more than Hoylen's two times in the Premier League + European matches.

The problem is that Sesco has only 0.56 key passes per game, and only 5 excellent scoring opportunities are given. In contrast, Hoylen, who averaged 0.77 key passes per game, created 9 excellent scoring opportunities, had few assists, perhaps because of Manchester United teammates' poor shooting.

Just say that Manchester United bought a new shooter Cunya this season and Mbemo, who has a relatively comprehensive ability, also gives Cesco more possibilities for success.

Cesco has the ability to dribble the ball when pushing back in large space, which is very important. After passing, Cesco's passing creativity is good.

This time, Opunda was a masterpiece when passing the ball and finding the back point, but unfortunately his teammate shot and shot. Of course, this pass lands a bit farther, and Opunda is not easy to play.

Cesco's biggest problem is his offensive choice. He likes to drive the ball forward in the middle circle rather than passing the ball. This time he came out of the cracks between two defenders. This should not be the work that a 1.95-meter forward was doing.

You can say that Sesco is talented, but his offensive choice is not a good thing after all. Especially when he came to the front of the penalty area, he was very confident in his long shot and did not like passing the ball very much. After such a way of playing came to the Premier League, the problem may be even greater.

After all, the Premier League individual defense is stronger than the Bundesliga. If Cesco cannot defeat his opponent, his offensive choice problem will be magnified.

Conclusion:

Manchester United's current dilemma is actually in need of mature stars to lead the team out of the quagmire. Always spending a lot of money to buy semi-finished products, but I don’t have the ability to level up, which has caused a lot of transfer funds to be wasted.

After all, the growth of young people requires a more reasonable overall environment and a mature and clear system, which are exactly what Manchester United does not have. It takes too much fate to expect young people to grow explosively, at least Manchester United has not been able to wait before.

(Himu)