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Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim accepts £73.7m striker Benjamin Sesko has struggled at times in his first few weeks at the club but urged him not to take criticism from club legends personally.
Sesko has scored two goals in his first 11 appearances for United.
He last found the net against Sunderland at Old Trafford on 4 October and his performance at Nottingham Forest last weekend prompted former skipper Gary Neville to declare the Slovenia international was “miles off it” compared to fellow new arrivals Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo.
Amorim does accept there is substance to Neville’s comments. However, he also feels they lack the context of Sesko moving to a new league at the age of 22, having only spent two seasons in the Bundesliga with RB Leipzig.
“I’m relaxed,” he said. “[But] he’s not relaxed.
“I understand how things are in football and he’s going to struggle. That is normal. He has no experience here.
“The first impact [is] when everyone says that you are so good, you are the next big thing and you hear that about Sesko.
“Then you come to one club that is the hardest club. If you don’t perform every week, you are going to hear a lot of things from club legends, from pundits, from the media – and sometimes they are right.
“Of course, nobody likes to hear but he struggled a little bit, and that is a fact. So, let’s embrace that.
“It is hard to hear but it’s not personal. It’s an opinion that is going to change in three weeks. Everything that is true today, in three weeks, could be a lie.”
Sesko is understood to be spending huge amounts of time at United’s Carrington training ground as he gets an understanding of the performance levels he is delivering compared to those he is required to meet.
He often arrives more than 90 minutes earlier than the normal meeting time of 09:45 and does not leave until 16:00, long after most of his team-mates.
United sources remain confident they made the right decision to sign Sesko, while at the same time sending Rasmus Hojlund on loan to Napoli, even though the Dane has scored four times in nine appearances for the Italian champions.
“Ben is a young kid, a control freak,” said Amorim.
“He wants to control everything – and he’s not going to control everything.
“He has more potential than I was thinking [but] we need to understand how he likes to play and also to put in our ideas.
Amorim admits he is lucky to have Man Utd backing
United meet Tottenham for the first time since Brennan Johnson’s goal proved decisive when Spurs beat them in the Europa League final in May.
Yet, despite lifting the trophy in Bilbao and securing a place in this season’s Champions League, Tottenham sacked coach Ange Postecoglou, who has also since lost his job at Nottingham Forest.
Amorim has just completed a year in the United job and the match in north London will be his 38th Premier League game in charge, a full season of fixtures that has resulted in just 12 victories.
Yet minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe recently said it may take Amorim up to three years to fully implement his style and the 40-year-old former Sporting coach retains the full backing of the board.
“I said already, I’m really lucky to be here,” said the Portuguese.
“If you see the game, I think we deserve to win but it doesn’t matter. It’s hard to see a coach that wins a European cup go away and the other guy stays.
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