Before the season started, everyone had their idea of who will be United's new front line. Considering we signed a completely new front line, it would make sense that this would be it.
However, we've hardly seen the trio of Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko all start at the same time. In Fact, they've only been in the starting XI on one occasion in our eight matches thus far, that being the disappointing 3-1 loss to Brentford where we put in our worst performance of the campaign despite the positivity of Sesko getting his first goal for the club.
So with that in being, is our new front three the front three that should be starting all the time or is there a case to be made for someone else?
What Is Amorim's Best Front Three?
Cunha, Mbeumo, Mason Mount.
This has actually been United's most-used front three featuring in three matches at the start of the season.
We first saw them in the defeat to Arsenal on the opening day which was unsurprising given the fact that Sesko was signed not long before this match but to then not see him start in the following two league matches (Fulham and Burnley), that was where I began to worry a little.
Did Amorim rate him? Does he prefer to play with a false 9? Is it favouritism towards someone like Mount? Did Amorim even want Sesko?
These were all questions I was asking myself about this new striker of ours who wasn't actually first-choice. When looking at that list of no 9s United were linked to, Sesko was the lowest on the list behind the likes of Liam Delap, Viktor Gyokeres, Hugo Ekitike and Ollie Watkins who was the player that according to reports, was the striker for Amorim, NOT Sesko.
It was only when Cunha and Mount picked up injuries in the first half of the win over Burnley that we saw the new £74m Slovenian start as striker. This felt like it was more a have to rather than want to because of those injuries to the two no 10s.
Now that Sesko is in the team though, we can see what a difference he has made.
Although he began very slowly and looked to be facing the struggles of previous United strikers (to an extent, you can say he still is), over time, the 22-year-old has gotten up to speed with things in the Premier League. Amorim admitted that these early struggles were down to him “learning that the Premier League is even faster than the Bundesliga.”
When looking at his recent performances, Sesko has proved why he can be a good signing.
With his height (1.95m) and incredible leap, United have used this to their advantage as Amorim has opted for something a little more old-school and root one. His goalkeeper goes the direct path and pumps the ball long to get the flick-on from the no 9. This has been used to great effect as on a couple of occasions, it's got his teammates into good attacking positions.
The best example is that flick-on to Mbeumo who got the ball before Robert Sanchez who took the United man out and got himself sent off within five minutes in the important win over Chelsea. Had Sesko not got his head on the ball first, you could make the case we don't go on to win that game.
That long ball only happens because of the striker's height and jump. In fact, United lead the way with 181 accurate long balls in the Premier League. This should indicate that we are going more root one.
We can even use his height with the long throw-in which has made quite the comeback. Diogo Dalot is our man for this and has been key in creating chances. Sesko's 2nd of his 2 goals came from such a situation.
The no 9's hold-up play and link-up has improved and improved the team's overall play. We look to Sesko to pin defenders back and hold the ball up while bringing others into play. To have such a focal point is vital when you want to relieve pressure and bring others into play. With runners like Mbeumo in particular, he benefits a lot from a striker like big Ben. I think these two have been developing a bit of an understanding in recent weeks when they've been starting together more regularly.
Speaking of Mbeumo, he has been ever-present in Amorim's lineups. The Cameroonian has started all seven league games and came off the bench to score in the defeat to Grimsby in the Carabao Cup.
Mbeumo is one of only three players to have featured in every game along with Matthijs De Ligt (who has been my player of the season) and captain Bruno Fernandes which is no surprise.
But in this, we can see just how important he is to Amorim. It's rare for new signings to come into a side and be embedded into the team straight away and more than that, play as much as he has. Usually, they take time to get into the lineup and be a regular in the team. Not so with Mbeumo.
This has a lot to do with his profile. Mbeumo is a very hard working footballer who does a lot of running both in possession and out of it. It's this same work rate he had at Brentford which I believe is one of the main reasons as to why Amorim wanted him at United.
His movement off the ball is also key and is where that combo with Sesko comes in. The big striker does flick it on and Mbeumo gets on the end of it. A very simple but effective tactic used by the United boss that has been working in our favour.
Amorim also mentioned how Amad playing out wide benefits Mbeumo as it allows him to be more central and involved in the play which means more link ups with Sesko. These two new players also happen to be our joint-top scorers with 2, the same as the skipper.
Being PL-proven also helps Mbeumo because unlike Sesko, he didn't need time to get used to things and is another reason as to why he was a good signing.
Things haven't gone quite so well for the other new PL-proven player.
After what was a quick, £62.5m deal, everyone was excited for arguably one of the best mavericks of the league last season in Cunha joining United.
And after a couple of strong performances at the start of the season, we all felt like he was going to be the one to get us to that next level.
However, since those couple of matches, the Brazilian picked up an injury which kept him out for three weeks and hasn't looked himself in the last two matches. Cunha put in his worst performance so far in that loss to Brentford and was then dropped in the 2-0 win over Sunderland for Mount.
While that was a bit of a surprising call, no one said that it was wrong of the manager given how poor he was the week before. Amorim was also proven right with that Mount inclusion as the former Chelsea man scored and was contender for man of the match.
A bold but correct move from the manager.
Thoughts on this? 👇
You don't expect new signings to be benched especially one of the quality of Cunha but it isn't the worst thing when he hasn't performed as well as we would've liked despite being just a couple of months in.
But what the Brazilian can bring is something completely different to anyone in our side. As I said, Cunha is a maverick and these type of footballers don't come around too often so to know that we have one in our squad, is a blessing.
Cunha has this ability to turn and run with the ball which is why we want the rest of the team to give him the ball whenever possible. The quicker we do it, the better. He is a player who likes it into feet rather than want to run in behind. This gives us a bit of versatility in that front three as Mbeumo is better with going beyond the striker while Cunha drops in deeper so as to get the ball from those positions and drive forward with it.
The ball also sticks to his foot and with the strength he has, it is very difficult to get possession off of him. Because of this, oppositions will try to put more than one player on him to try and win possession back. This then leaves spaces for others to exploit and it works in our favour.
Between him and Mbeumo, we know that we have two more creators and goal scorers in the side which we know is desperately needed. United scored just 44 in the PL last season and even in this, the ball has found the back of the net on just 9 occasions.
Not good enough.
What I believe is causing the likes of both Sesko and Cunha to struggle compared to someone like Mbeumo is that this squad and our general play style from what we've had over the years, doesn't suit such players.
Mbeumo works because he is someone who can run in behind. United in the past five years are more of a transitional team as the likes of Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Mason Greenwood all performed in such a setup. Mbeumo is benefitting from that as well.
We also don't know how to use a centre-forward. The term 'graveyard shift' has been assigned to United's striker role due to the lack of service they receive often resulting in the man up top being a complete waste. In his first couple of games, we saw just how unusual it felt to us to have a traditional no 9. Rasmus Hojlund had his problems with the team as well. This is seen better by how well he's performing at Napoli. There, they are playing to his strengths and giving him the chances that which he never had at United.
We've not really had a maverick-type player in a long time either. They are more complex than most even if it is as simple as playing the ball into their feet to get the best out of them. We have this habit to want to go for the extravagent pass instead of keeping it more simple.
When you have Bruno in midfield, this is going to be an issue that is more prevalent. He has the wont to try for the spectacular which isn't actually Cunha's game. The former Wolves man wants it quickly into his feet and then he can drive into space, which is what made him so good at Molineux. As he isn't the quickest, the long ball or through ball isn't necessarily going to work and it sort of bypasses him to a point where we're taking away his best qualities.
However, one solution to that is Mount.
He isn't either a maverick nor someone who likes to run in behind yet has the abilities to do both, to some extent.
Where he does have the upper hand over someone like Cunha is that he has been playing in this system longer than the Brazilian has. Mount did it for 1-and-a-half to 2 years whereas Cunha only played it for a decent amount last season at Wolves. Mount is also a player who works really hard which isn't one of Cunha's main strengths.
As per that point about Mbeumo, Amorim likes these hard grafters and Mount is certainly one of those. How he presses off the ball and higher up the pitch is perhaps amongst the best in the team, if not the best.
Mount can also score and create although that ability has diminished since he moved to Old Trafford in 2023 (of course 😐). However, he did score the opener in our recent 2-0 win over Sunderland in which he played a pivotal role in that important victory.
The issue with him is his reliability. With his horrendous injury history over the past two years, we know that at some point, he will be out of action for some time. He's already picked up a knock in just two-and-a-half games this season. Amorim took him off at halftime in the win over Burnley in match three.
The manager has been trying to manage his minutes better knowing that Mount is such a risk. This tells me that not only does he want to take care of a player but that he also values him highly in his team. People often say that if Mount can stay fit, there's a strong chance that he would be a regular starter. Some also believe that part of the reason as to why two no 10s were bought was to cover up for Mount's time on the sidelines.
It's these workhorse-type players that Amorim values more than most in his squad. This is why I believe we see a lot of game time for Bruno and Dalot, two players that most would rather they be dropped instead of play as much as they have.
What MM7 can also do is drop into midfield and make it three in the centre of the park. This will help the midfield pair and could give Amorim more of a reason to keep Bruno as a no 8, although he doesn't need much of a reason to do so.
What we've all noticed when Cunha and Mount were injured is just how much we missed them. There was a clear void in the team and we didn't have that same energy, work rate and rhythm without them. It's great to see such an impact from two players who are new to each other.
Final Thoughts
So, who do I think is our best front three, at least at the moment?
I'm going to have to go with Sesko up top, Mbeumo as right-sided no 10 and Mount on the left. I really don't want to be dropping Cunha but right now, Mount is doing a better job than him. Mbeumo can't be benched because he has been one of our best players this season and similar to Mount, looks like a player that Amorim truly admires. With Sesko, we look better with an actual striker compared to a false 9 and he brings so much to the table. With 2 goals in his last two, you cannot drop a no 9 on form.
This isn't to discredit Cunha or even when we were using a false 9 earlier in the campaign because even then, we looked decent with Mount and Cunha in the front three along with Mbeumo. Cunha played some of his best football in this role and perhaps should've scored a couple of goals when looking at his opportunities against Arsenal and Fulham. One of those was also from a root one long ball from Altay Bayindir.
Having a player of Cunha's quality on the bench isn't a bad thing either. It means you have a game-changer as a substitute should things go wrong and knowing the type of character Cunha is, he will be hating not being in the starting XI. A hungry maverick can be a deadly weapon.
What this does mean is that Amorim has no shortage of options as any of these three combos seem to work. All four players are different from each other and bring a variety of play styles to the table. To have these varieties are great because it makes it difficult for oppositions to predict what we are going to do.
In time though, I would like to see the front three be Sesko, Mbeumo and Cunha. They are more the future and were all bought for over £200m this past summer. You can't not be using them in your front line.
What do you think though? Who is Amorim's best front three? Who do you think is his preferred trio at the moment? Who do you think is our best overall? Will be interesting to see who Amorim selects against Liverpool 👀.
Bryan Mbeumo, Mason Mount, Matheus Cunha and Benjamin Sesko | Images via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)