Bryan Mbeumo’s first touch left Jaka Bijol on the Croke Park turf. Three more carried him deep behind a scrambling Leeds United back line. His fifth curled through the legs of Tarik Muharemovic and perfectly to Joshua Zirkzee’s feet for his first-time finish.
It was Manchester United’s ninth goal in five pre-season games, a clinic in explosive attacking — and all done without the man most would have expected to start the season leading the line.
Michael Carrick’s side would go on to draw their penultimate pre-season friendly 1-1 with Leeds United, winning 5-4 on penalties. There was still no role for Benjamin Sesko, who joined his team’s training camp in Ireland this week but is yet to feature in a pre-season squad match as he recovers from a shin injury.
The expectation is that Sesko will be ready for United’s Premier League opener at Hull City on August 22. However, with his involvement in pre-season limited, concerns about his readiness to slot in immediately are understandable.
After a slow start to his debut campaign, the striker thrived under Carrick to reach 11 league goals, nine of which came after the turn of the year. Some of those were crucial: the equaliser against West Ham United in February that lengthened Carrick’s unbeaten start, winners against Fulham and Everton the same month, goals in narrow victories over Brentford and Liverpool. However, he has not featured since that last match on May 5.
The prospect of starting the season without him in full flow, as he might have been with a complete pre-season with the squad, is a blow — but the silver lining is that it has given United the opportunity to sharpen their backup plan.
Bryan Mbeumo has impressed in Manchester United’s pre-season friendlies. (Evan Treacy/Getty Images)
Mbeumo led the line against Leeds for the third consecutive friendly, flanked by Amad to his right and Patrick Dorgu to his left, and has stood out. He registered an assist at Croke Park and scored three times in the previous two matches.
Carrick using Mbeumo as a centre-forward is not new — but the way United’s forward line is gelling around him is. Mbeumo split his time under Carrick last season across the forward line and while he added value from each role, that versatility also meant he did not put together a long run of games in any one position to fully fine-tune how he worked with those around him.
Sesko and Mbeumo profile differently: the former is more of an aerial threat, better suited to set-piece situations and attacking crosses, while the latter is a better ball-carrier, more of a threat from wide positions, and more experienced at link-up play.
Those shifts take time to adapt to — and that is particularly true with a player like Mbeumo. His positional versatility makes him more disposed to drifting wide or dropping deep, rotating in-game with his wide team-mates.
That fluidity, without familiarity, can create confusion. Familiarity, and with it confidence, is exactly what Carrick’s forwards have been building in pre-season.
Patrick Dorgu’s lengthy absence in the second half of the season means this is one of the longest stretches Mbeumo has had to link up with Dorgu in his new role as a left-winger. His relationship with Amad, too, is flourishing as the Ivorian grows in confidence in pre-season.
The front four of Amad, Dorgu, Mbeumo, and Zirkzee had an impressive understanding against Leeds: the fact Zirkzee (the No. 10) had more touches in the opposition box than Mbeumo (the No.9) and Amad (right winger) had more shots, helps illustrate how they rotated effectively.
Joshua Zirkzee celebrates scoring his team’s first goal (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
One of their slickest passages of play, midway through the first half, was a great illustration. After receiving the ball from Andrey Santos, Mbeumo — who dropped deep towards his own half, leaving Dorgu and Zirkzee as the front two — played a rapid one-two with Zirkzee and drove toward the box. Zirkzee and Dorgu provided the runs either side of him; Mbeumo’s attempted pass to Dorgu was blocked, from which he shot and forced a save. Amad was arriving on the edge of the box behind Mbeumo in case there was a shooting opportunity.
It did not result in a goal, but the movement was rapid, fluid, and showed great understanding of how to rotate to create problems.
The front four’s understanding was also apparent out of possession. They were asked to press high, in the first half particularly, leaving a 4-2-4 shape with little midfield cover. It was a risky approach, but when the four pressed as a unit it was effective, and resulted in some of United’s most dominant spells.
There are, of course, questions about this Plan B. Mbeumo struggled in the first half of United’s game against Atletico Madrid in a congested final third, a game where Sesko’s physical presence might have given him an edge. The press had also waned, likely through fatigue, by the time a host of substitutions, including Mbeumo, Amad, and Zirkzee were made on the hour mark.
Bruno Fernandes and Mateus Cunha were the new front two and brought renewed energy, though Cunha (understandably on his first pre-season appearance) did not have the same impact leading the line as Mbeumo. With more minutes in his legs, though, he can certainly be an option to share the workload up front.
But pre-season is not for drawing brash conclusions.
For example, to say this string of games means a fully fit and firing Sesko would have his place challenged up front by Mbeumo is not necessarily a fair takeaway. What pre-season is for is establishing contingencies, testing out options, and building dynamics.
That is exactly how United’s forward line are using it — and the lesson to take is that while Sesko is building back to his best, they have a sharp-looking backup plan.
