Sesko ruled out two months as United crisis deepens before Chelsea trip

Manchester United do not expect Benjamin Sesko to return from a shin injury for at least two months, according to The Athletic, as reported by Metro.

The £74m summer signing from RB Leipzig has not started a Premier League match this season and has been absent from any matchday squad since United's derby defeat to Manchester City in September.

The issue is separate from the injury that curtailed his 2025/26 campaign and then kept him out of pre-season training, and United believe he now needs further recovery time before building back up to match fitness, a process expected to keep him out until at least January.

Sesko had scored in consecutive games in September before the setback but has since missed United's last six matches, extending a stop-start first eighteen months at Old Trafford.

His debut season under former manager Ruben Amorim was difficult, but he improved sharply once Michael Carrick took charge, scoring six goals across January and February to finish the campaign as the club's joint top scorer with 11.

Speaking to Metro, Stephen Smith, chief executive of injury analytics firm Kitman Labs, said of Sesko's situation: "The risk is always there with recurrence."

The news comes with United enduring their worst start to a Premier League season, having also lost two of their opening three Champions League fixtures, leaving Carrick under mounting scrutiny before Saturday's trip to Chelsea, Yahoo Sports reported.

That pressure has fed renewed calls for change at ownership level, with former United captain Gary Neville telling the Glazer family it is time to walk away from the club entirely.

"They have to sell now, they have to sell, I'm sorry the time has come," Neville said on The Overlap's Stick to Football podcast.

He argued the American owners, who took control in a contested 2005 takeover and sold a minority stake to Jim Ratcliffe's Ineos group in 2024, had effectively handed footballing control to their minority partners while results continued to decline.

"They have subcontracted the football department out to Ineos, they are trying to run the football department, they have had three years of struggling and it looks like this year is going to be a struggle," Neville said.

He added a pointed observation about the Glazers' absence from Old Trafford: "The Glazer family over in America, in Tampa, they're very popular over there, they go to every game, apparently, I hear, they go to all the NFL games, they've hardly been to Old Trafford in 20-odd years."

Writing for the Guardian, Daniel Harris questioned whether even an elite head coach could reverse what he described as United's doom loop, pointing to a squad he called unfit and uneven amid continuing executive upheaval, with Eddie Howe, Julian Nagelsmann and Mauricio Pochettino floated as names who might eventually be asked to try.

Harris noted the scale of the decline, with United sliding from an uplifting third-place finish last season to some of the worst football in the club's history.

Carrick takes his side to Stamford Bridge on Saturday with Sesko still absent and the club's Premier League and Champions League form both under pressure, while the question of ownership raised by Neville shows no sign of being settled soon.