Man Utd given hope in Benjamin Sesko transfer race as RB Leipzig boss provides update after Newcastle's £70m bid
The Toon wasted no time in their pursuit of the striker as they immediately met RB Leipzig's asking price.
5
5
Newcastle offered the Bundesliga side an initial £65.5m with £4.3m coming in potential add-ons.
But reports by Sky Germany claim the deal is not done yet and more negotiations are scheduled for tonight with both clubs.
Sesko, 22, is said to have a gentleman's agreement with RB Leipzig that he can leave if they receive a good enough offer.
And with talks ongoing, Sesko was left out of their pre-season friendly against Atalanta today.
RB Leipzig chief Marcel Schafer was asked about the player's future and he said: "We won't go into detail on that, but when I say that several clubs have shown strong interest and have made approaches, it's obvious what has happened.'
Sesko is said to be weighing up a move to either Newcastle or Man Utd after talks with his representatives.
Interest from St James' Park comes amid star striker Alexander Isak looking to force an exit to Liverpool.
The Swede is currently training alone at his former club Real Sociedad after not joining his team-mates on the club's pre-season tour.
5
Isak has his heart set on a switch to Liverpool despite them already splashing £79m on Eintracht Frankfurt striker Hugo Ekitike this summer.
The Premier League champions had a £110m bid for Isak turned down by Newcastle yesterday.
They are demanding a staggering £150m for their main man.
Meanwhile, Man Utd's Sesko interest is being driven by director of recruitment Christopher Vivell, who previously worked at RB Leipzig.
The club are desperate to sign a striker after Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee managed just seven league goals between them last season.
Sesko was on fire in the Bundesliga, finding the back of the net 13 times in 33 games last term.
Arsenal were interested in the Slovenian but are now out the running after snapping up Viktor Gyokeres from Sporting Lisbon for £63.5m.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
10 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Aston Villa hopeful of completing the signing of Nice forward Evann Guessand - with the Ivory Coast star set to become Unai Emery's first major addition of the window
are working on the signing of Nice forward Evann Guessand and hope to complete a deal this week as they try to add extra competition to their attack. In what would be Villa's first significant move in the market this summer, Guessand would join Unai Emery 's men for about £28m. Villa have been looking for a new forward ever since Jhon Duran departed last January and seem to have settled on Guessand, who has been considered one of the most promising players in French football in recent seasons. He scored 13 goals and had 10 assists in all competitions last season and though he plays mainly through the middle, the 24-year-old can also operate on the flanks. Villa have insisted all summer that Ollie Watkins is not for sale but if they sign Guessand, it will be interesting to see whether clubs who admire Watkins make a serious move for him. Meanwhile, West Ham remain keen to sign Jacob Ramsey from Aston Villa with the midfielder currently keeping his options open over his long-term future. Though Ramsey is well-regarded by Villa boss Unai Emery, his status as a homegrown player means an eventual transfer fee represents pure profit in the club accounts – crucial in the current era of Premier League spending rules. Villa have been willing to listen to offers for Ramsey since the transfer window opened and are thought to value him at about £40million.
The Guardian
13 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Transfer trouble and boardroom bother: vexed Newcastle face a puzzled future
'If you want to understand Newcastle you first need to understand its place in the world – that is, a very long way from anywhere. The next major city is Leeds, two hours drive to the south … London feels very far away.' If Eddie Howe can only hope his prospective signings do not stumble across the Rough Guides introduction to England's northern cities, Newcastle's manager may also reflect that it was not supposed to be like this. The days when the club's recruitment strategy was often a victim of its geographical isolation were supposed to have ended four years ago when Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund obtained the keys to St James' Park. In October 2021 there was a sense of giddiness in the Tyneside air as Amanda Staveley, the then Newcastle director and minority owner who played a key role in convincing one of the world's richest sovereign wealth funds to buy the club from Mike Ashley, settled back into a sofa at the city's leafy Jesmond Dene House hotel and spoke of soaring ambition and trophies galore. Since then a series of leading players including Alexander Isak, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimarães have signed for Newcastle, Howe's team are in the Champions League for the second time in three years and are the holders of the Carabao Cup, their first domestic trophy for 70 years. Rather less positively, Isak is doing his utmost to force through a move to Liverpool, a slew of big names have turned Howe down in favour of relocating to London or Manchester this summer and Newcastle are seeking their third sporting director and second chief executive in three years. Oh and Staveley and her husband, Mehrdad Ghodoussi, are no longer around, after being ousted in a boardroom power struggle early last summer. Staveley subsequently spoke of her 'heartbreak' and 'devastation' at that departure, insisting rumours of a planned exit were 'absolute rubbish'. Thirteen months on, Newcastle's chair, Yasir al-Rumayyan, and the rest of the Riyadh-based Saudi ownership are perhaps realising that maybe she was more important to their Geordie project than they realised. Arguably almost everything that has subsequently gone wrong seems rooted in that parting of the ways. Crucially, Staveley and Ghodoussi were excellent communicators within a club where, at assorted levels, personal connections have since loosened and the Saudi ownership remain so remote that no representative of PIF has spoken to the UK football media. In contrast Staveley was big on the human touch, taking time to stop and chat to players, staff and, occasionally, reporters while also sending first-teamers regular text messages as she established rare trust with the instinctively wary Howe. Maybe Staveley sometimes over-promised. Isak's representatives certainly believe the striker was assured his £150,000-a-week wages would be boosted significantly last summer and the fallout is hurting Howe now. Yet given that Newcastle only narrowly avoided a potential points deduction and heavy fine after scrambling to comply with Premier League spending rules within hours of a key deadline last June, the club's decision to tell Isak he would have to be content with his current deal after all represented financial logic. Howe's problem was that a striker who would proceed to score 27 goals last season remained seriously annoyed. Indeed Isak, along with certain similarly sulky teammates, started the campaign badly and it took the manager's considerable man-management skills to talk them round. It did not go unnoticed that, after the Carabao Cup triumph, Isak's body language turned uninterested again. Even so, the Swede had three years on his contract and there was a – misplaced – sense that a supposedly 'laid-back' character would not 'rock the boat', let alone skip a pre-season tour of south east Asia, particularly as he was poised to be offered an improved contract this summer. Instead Liverpool's interest turned the head of a striker said to be disappointed that there is still no sign of a much-vaunted new training ground at a club where a long-awaited, and much-delayed, decision as to whether Newcastle will revamp St James' Park or build a new stadium has again been postponed. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion At a time when, given the constraints of profitability and sustainability rules, the art of selling is just as important as buying players, moving Isak to Liverpool for £120m-plus this month makes sense, permitting Howe to restock a talented but slender squad. The real puzzle is the lack of honest springtime conversations with Isak that might have allowed Newcastle to force an auction involving Liverpool, Arsenal et al before using their handsome profit to source an elite replacement. Instead Liam Delap, João Pedro, Hugo Ekitiké and now, perhaps, Benjamin Sesko have slipped through the net, preferring to move to London or Manchester. Newcastle, though, is not exactly Siberia and might have proved an easier sell had the Saudis swiftly appointed a successor to Darren Eales, who announced his resignation as chief executive 11 months ago after a blood cancer diagnosis. Eales finally seems poised to be replaced by the Canadian former Real Madrid executive David Hopkinson, but Paul Mitchell's abrupt departure 'by mutual consent', announced in late May, dictates that Newcastle have spent the transfer window without a sporting director. Mitchell, who succeeded Dan Ashworth last July, left without signing a player after kicking off his tenure by declaring that the transfer strategy was 'unfit for purpose' and the manager needed 'to evolve'. An uneasy truce with Howe eventually ensued but, less than 24 hours after Mitchell and the manager met Rumayyan for a post-season planning summit, his impending exit was announced. Throw in the enduring silence from Saudi Arabia and it is easy to understand why a footballer's agent might tell his client that, although Howe is clearly a brilliant coach, Newcastle look a bit dysfunctional right now. Geography may no longer be the main reason why top players steer clear of Tyneside.
Daily Mirror
13 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Benjamin Sesko's Man Utd or Newcastle call shouldn't boil down to manager 'reservations'
An ex-Premier League chairman has urged Benjamin Sesko to sign for Newcastle United over Ruben Amorim's Manchester United, despite having reservations over Magpies boss Eddie Howe in the past Simon Jordan has told Benjamin Sesko to head to St James' Park over Old Trafford, stating the RB Leipzig striker will have "less scrutiny" playing under Eddie Howe than Ruben Amorim. The former Crystal Palace chairman admits he had "reservations in the past" over the Newcastle manager, but he now believes the Carabao Cup winners are the right team for Sesko to thrive in. Newcastle and Manchester United are locked in a transfer battle to sign the 22-year-old. The two sides have submitted big bids to bring Sesko to their respective clubs. The Magpies struck first with a rejected offer before coming back with an improved proposal worth £70million plus add-ons. However, the Red Devils have lodged a bid of their own worth £65.1m plus a further £8.7m in add-ons, and a final decision from the Slovenian international looks to be imminent. Jordan appeared on talkSPORT to discuss the choice Sesko faces, admitting that if money weren't an issue, then Newcastle should be his prime destination. "If I were in his shoes, if the economics of the deal were that I wasn't being compromised financially by going to Newcastle over Manchester United, I think it's a great move," Jordan said, before he went on to discuss the former Bournemouth boss. "I think Eddie Howe is a brilliant manager – I had my reservations about him in the past – I've had conversations already. I like him very much, and I think he's done a brilliant job. "So I would be looking at Newcastle rather than Man United." Jordan went on to note that everything Sesko does would be looked at under a microscope when playing under Amorim at United, whereas he would have more freedom to grow while developing under Howe. Jordan added: "I think because Newcastle comes with expectation, but doesn't come with the same pressure that Man United comes from. "Whilst people focus on Newcastle, they focus on it because Newcastle makes a lot of noise, because it's a very passionate football club and the fans are very motivated by it. It doesn't have the day-to-day scrutiny that Man United has. "It doesn't matter what happens, you can fart in the corridor of Man United – that's heard around the world. It's not the same at Newcastle." United are reportedly confident that Sesko will be heading to the north west of England to add to their attacking line, having secured the signatures of Brentford's Bryan Mbeumo and ex-Wolves man Matheus Cunha already this summer. Sesko, though, is considered a ready replacement at Newcastle for Alexander Isak, whose form has understandably caught the attention of Premier League champions Liverpool. The Reds have already submitted a £110m bid for the Swede – which has been rejected – but Howe looks destined to sell the wantaway star should the Magpies first land Sesko. The Red Devils are in yet another period of transition. In November 2024, they appointed former Sporting CP boss Amorim to help the club compete back in the European places of the Premier League, but another disappointing campaign last season saw them ultimately finish in 15th and without a trophy. Meanwhile, Newcastle are on the up after securing their first piece of silverware in 70 years in the Carabao Cup final against Liverpool. They finished fifth last year in the Premier League and are set to compete in the Champions League once again this season. Meanwhile, United will be without European football this campaign after losing the Europa League final 1-0 to Tottenham Hotspur. All of these things may well factor into Sesko's decision to pick black and white or Manchester red, with both sets of fans eagerly awaiting to see his choice made soon. Join our new MAN UTD WhatsApp community and receive your daily dose of Manchester United content from Mirror Football. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
