striker

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.

“I’m quite relaxed with that. He is going to be our striker for the long term but he’s going to have these struggles and these bumps during the ride. That is a normal thing in football.”

Having scored six goals from seven shots on target, Welbeck is on track to surpass the career-best 10 top-flight goals he scored last season.

Several different strikers have played second fiddle to Harry Kane in recent years, but none are currently enjoying the kind of purple patch Welbeck is.

“If you look at the forward options in Tuchel’s last squad there aren’t many obvious stand-ins for Harry Kane,” Alan Shearer told BBC Sport.

“Anthony Gordon, Jarrod Bowen, Bukayo Saka aren’t going to fill that role and Ollie Watkins hasn’t been firing for Aston Villa, so any English striker scoring goals in the Premier League is going to be talked about.

“It’s seven years since Welbeck’s last cap and he’s 35 this month but Tuchel isn’t worried about the future. His only focus is the six weeks of the World Cup so there’s no reason why Welbeck couldn’t be involved if he keeps scoring and stays injury free.”

Injuries have disrupted much of Welbeck’s career and arguably prevented him from adding to his 42 England caps, but he now founds himself in the beneficial position of being able to contribute goals on the pitch and leadership off it.

“I’m loving it here at Brighton, I’ve been very important, integral, on and off the pitch,” added Welbeck.

“I’m enjoying the senior role as well, I know how important it was for me as a youngster coming through having senior members you can speak to, come to for advice, it helped me massively.

“It’s come full circle now, I’m there to pass on advice to youngsters and help those around me. It’s been pretty seamless slipping into this role.”

Welbeck recently told BBC Radio 5 Live that “the door is always open” with England.

He added: “I know that if I’m called upon then I’d love to do the job, but honestly it doesn’t come into my thinking at the moment. I’m just focused on Brighton, winning games and picking up points.”

While Welbeck has played down his chances, Onuoha, who has played against Welbeck in the past, believes he knows Tuchel will be interested in him.

“You almost talk about him like he has never played for England before. He has done that job before,” Onuoha said.

“With the profile he has, he could definitely suit Tuchel’s style as such. For someone to be in that form, he knows he is going to be part of the conversation.”

Teenage striker Michelle Agyemang has been backed to to find the strength to reach her potential “without a doubt” despite rupturing her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

The 19-year-old will miss the rest of the season after suffering the injury as the Lionesses beat Australia 3-0 in Tuesday’s friendly.

Agyemang was as a surprise inclusion in Sarina Wiegman’s squad for Euro 2025 in the summer, but scored crucial goals in both the quarter-finals and semi-finals as they successfully defended their European title.

The Arsenal forward started this season well on loan at Brighton, whose manager Dario Vidosic said on Friday: “It’s not just us that are heartbroken but the whole nation, seeing her go down in that game, I think we all held our breath.

“There are no words, it’s a tough one. I spoke to her today and she said she is OK, she feels good.

“She is a very switched-on kid so her mind is already set on it (recovery), that’s the impressive thing about her that maybe not everyone gets to see.

“It’s a chance to improve. We’ll keep her engaged and learning, if not physically. We can still keep her mind growing and learning as a young player.

“She still has a lot of potential that we were seeing each week, she was growing through the experience of playing and coming up against tough opponents.

“Now we’ll find another means to do that off the pitch. We’ll help her mentally so that when she comes back it will be like she hasn’t missed a beat.”

Having suffered two ACL injuries herself during her playing career, Arsenal manager Renee Slegers knows what Agyemang is going through.

“It’s a very sad time,” she added. “When these moments happen it’s horrible because you know that it will keep them away from the game for a long time.

“Michelle has been doing so well, she was in a really good place. The timing of this isn’t great, although it’s never a good time.

“But Michelle is very strong, she’s young, she will have the strength to come back and we’ll do everything we can to support her.”

Despite its listing as a “risky” product, the FSA told BBC Sport there has been an increase in the popularity of raw milk because “people believe it has health benefits” – though it says there is little credible scientific evidence to support that.

The farm at which Haaland was filmed buying milk wrote on Facebook that its product had been “rather in demand” since the episode was posted, staff had been “frazzled”, and it hoped to “buy a new dairy cow very soon” so orders could be met more quickly.

Former City academy nutritionist Dan Richardson told BBC Sport he would always look for the “safest approach possible” so as “not to compromise on the safety of food”.

He said: “The challenge with raw milk is that you can get some companies who do a good job in reducing the risk factor to bacteria, and I am sure Haaland will be using the premium quality available out there.

“A nutritionist is not going to allow him to buy raw milk that has a high risk of contamination. When people begin to copy these dietary habits, it can become unsafe as people will go out and buy the cheapest and most accessible version that may carry the food-borne illnesses.”

Asked if he felt the trend of drinking raw milk would gain momentum, Richardson said: “Unfortunately, I can see it happening.”

For Haaland, drinking raw milk is part of an unconventional off-field routine that also includes red-light therapy and adding maple syrup to his coffee.

Richardson added: “Young athletes need to remember that getting the right amount of carbohydrates, hitting the protein intake and eating three regular meals with snacks is a better approach than jumping towards trends.

“Some athletes will try to find a quick fix by replicating a role model rather than doing the mundane stuff really well.

“We just want to use safe food where possible.”

England manager Sarina Wiegman is “not very positive” about the injury to forward Michelle Agyemang, who was carried off on a stretcher with what appeared to be a knee injury during England’s 3-0 win against Australia.

Agyemang, 19, went down with an off-the-ball injury just 13 minutes after being brought on as a second-half substitute before being replaced by Chloe Kelly and left Pride Park on crutches.

In her post-match news conference in Derby, Wiegman said she had not yet received any information on the injury but expressed concern.

“Of course it was an awful moment, it doesn’t look good,” she said. “We don’t know yet but I’m not very positive about what I’ve seen.”

Former Arsenal defender Jen Beattie said Wiegman’s comments to the media were not a good sign.

“Sarina’s comments said a lot because the manager will always be the first person that gets a little nod from the medical team. I think her whole demeanour spoke volumes,” Beattie said on BBC Radio 5 Live.

“I don’t want to speculate I just hope she’s OK.”

Agyemang, who is currently on loan at Brighton from Arsenal, played a key role for the Lionesses in their Euro 2025 triumph.

Goals from the bench in the quarter-final against Sweden and in the semi-final against Italy forced extra time and gave England a platform for victory.

Her exploits in Switzerland led to her being nominated for the Kopa trophy, an award given to world’s best under-21 female footballer.

She has featured in five of Brighton’s six Women’s Super League games this season, starting each of those matches.

Ex-Premier League striker Jamie Cureton tells Monday Night Club on his desire to still play football aged 50, after scoring his debut goal for Kings Park Rangers meaning he has scored in the top-10 tiers of English football.

READ MORE: Cureton, 50, scores in 10th tier to ‘complete football’

LISTEN: Monday Night Club

Thank goodness for Harry Kane.

The Bayern Munich star is likely to start England’s match in Riga against Latvia on Tuesday night where he will be hoping to add to his superb run of 18 goals from his past 10 matches.

A minor injury meant Kane was not involved in England’s 3-0 win over Wales on Thursday night with Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins – the only other out-and-out striker in the squad – deputising.

But during the match Watkins collided with the post and has subsequently been ruled out of the Latvia fixture through injury.

England fans are once again going through who the striker options behind captain Kane and the answer does not appear obvious.

Remarkably, only seven English players you would class as an out-and-out striker have appeared in the Premier League this season – with Chelsea’s Liam Delap the only one of the seven under the age of 26.

The other six are Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Eddie Nketiah, Dominic Solanke, Watkins, Danny Welbeck and Callum Wilson.

England’s lack of options in the centre-forward position was even noted by Under-21s manager Lee Carsley, who said on Monday: “We need more centre forwards, we need more orthodox number nines which are capable of scoring goals. We really value that position.”

“I think it is in fashion to play your centre forwards out wide or to play them withdrawn. I think it is something that we need to be aware of, the poacher and the goalscorer and the player that plays on the shoulder and the focal point is something that I value.”

While England’s senior team’s boss Thomas Tuchel has a selection headache all over the field – due to an abundance of options – who he picks as Kane’s deputy for the World Cup is a different problem for a very different reason.

With England just a win away from qualifying for the summer’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, the race to be Kane’s back-up is very much on.

BBC Sport has selected five options who between them have 25 England goals compared to Kane’s record 74.

Of course, injury could definitively intervene in the destination of the Golden Boot, but there are two reasons why Haaland is such a strong favourite for the award so early.

First, the number of goals he has already scored – and, just as importantly, the number and quality of chances he is getting. And second, the slow start his usual rivals for the prize have made.

A player’s expected goals number (xG) signifies how many goals a Premier League player has historically scored from the number and quality of chances he has had.

It is not a number randomly picked by statistics boffins, but by Premier League history.

And if we look at players’ xG in the Premier League so far this season from normal play, the Norway forward is getting so many more good opportunities to score than anyone else.

Indeed, even if Haaland were no better at finishing chances than anyone else in the league, he would still have scored more than twice as many goals as everyone else.