Benjamin Šeško’s transfer choice is blatantly obvious amid fierece Man United & Newcastle battle

It’s a tug of war which has swiftly turned into one of the biggest stories of the transfer window – a head-to-head battle between Manchester United and Newcastle to sign RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Šeško.

By most accounts, the Slovenian striker is minded to move to Manchester United should he be given the choice. Neither of his suitors have yet had a bid accepted by Leipzig, and one could outbid the other and render any debate about his destination moot – but there is every chance that Šeško will be given a decision to make, and early evidence suggests that his mind may be made up already.

But would a move to Manchester United be the right one for the prodigiously-talented 22-year-old – or would Newcastle provide a better base for sustained long-term success in his career?

Benjamin Šeško’s playing style offers Ruben Amorim some answers

There have been two fundamental problems up front for Manchester United since Ruben Amorim took charge last November – firstly, a disconnect between the way that Amorim wants his centre-forward to play and how they position themselves and link up with their colleagues, and secondly (and more straightforwardly) that they aren’t scoring any goals.

The latter is, plainly enough, the more significant issue, and signing Šeško would represent a step towards solving that. He has 27 league goals in 64 Bundesliga appearances at a highly impressive rate of 0.64 goals for every 90 minutes played – for context, only 10 players with at least 10 appearances scored more quickly in the Premier League last season.

Even more spectacularly, those 27 goals have come from a combined total of just 17.7xG, suggesting that his finishing instincts are far better than those of the average top-flight striker. All of the numbers make it clear that if you find ways to feed him the ball, he will score.

But there is more to being a striker than simply scoring goals, especially in a relatively intricate system such as Amorim’s. What the Portuguese manager wants is a forward who can not only bury his chances but also attack the channels and drop into pockets of space around the penalty area, creating space and opportunities for those around him. That’s the way in which Amorim used Viktor Gyökeres at Sporting, as a destructive striker who could both generate chances and pull defenders out of position.

Šeško fits that bill up to a point. He is comfortable dropping back to pick up the ball, carrying it effectively with a surging turn of speed, but he isn’t a playmaker in the way that Gyökeres is – Šeško created fewer than two shooting chances per match last season, his passing range is limited, and while he did provide five assists in 2024/25, all but one of them were simple square passes or lay-offs rather than the product of vision of technical quality.

Indeed, Šeško is not an especially technical player, and while he is an effective dribbler he isn’t especially tricksy or at his best in compacted areas. He drops deep to find space he can turn and run into for himself, not to play sharp passes to feed his team-mates.

Why Newcastle’s direct system may suit Šeško more

Newcastle, on the other hand, play a more direct style of football based around winning the ball quickly and counter-attacking – and that should suit Šeško down to the ground.

Eddie Howe wants players who attack space and thrive when given room to run into, and is looking to get the ball forward swiftly rather than smartly, as Amorim’s teams tend to with United generally reserving their more direct football for wide areas. Šeško’s combination of physical attributes and natural playing style would be ideal for the way that Newcastle set up, rather than broadly useful as they might be at Old Trafford.

It helps that they would also maximise the Slovenian’s aerial prowess. At over 6’4” tall, Šeško is excellent in the air and lethal against the high ball, with eight of his 27 league goals being headers and four of them coming from set plays. While it’s not as though Manchester United would have no use for those attributes, they don’t get the ball into the air as often as their Tyneside counterparts.

Newcastle threw in 705 crosses last season, the sixth most in the Premier League, while Manchester United played just 630, keeping the ball on the ground more often – and Newcastle were also far more likely to launch corners directly into the box with in-swingers where United more often played it short or used the out-swinger.

Of course, the natural flow of the game means that even teams set up to play possession football will find themselves going direct or on the counter-attack from time to time, and Manchester United aren’t averse to getting the ball up to the front line at speed – it just isn’t their default or their intent.

They would have plenty of use for Šeško’s qualities, but it’s hard not to feel that Newcastle might maximise them, and when you throw in the fact that they can offer Champions League football while Manchester United are in the middle of a truly shambolic period of their history, it’s maybe a little strange that reports suggest that he’s more convinced by their offer.

Then again, for all their recent travails, the United brand remains a powerful lure, and with Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha on board it’s very possible that their attack will be far better this coming season – but there’s a sense that from a purely footballing perspective, Newcastle might be better set up to get the very best out of Šeško, to use his best qualities to the maximum. But that isn’t the only thing that matters to players, and nor does it mean that he wouldn’t still thrive at Manchester United. Besides, he’s already following them on Instagram...