As Manchester United prepare for the start of the 2025/26 season and their opener against Premier League title contenders Arsenal, there’s a lot of optimism in the air regarding their future.
That’s a sudden change from where they were at a few months ago, but Manchester United actually went out and signed proven attackers who can bring goals and bags of quality, rather than overspending on gambles without established goal-scoring track records, namely Serie A youngsters Joshua Zirkzee and Rasmus Hojlund (the latter of whom is likely headed back to Italy this summer.
These players – Benjamin Sesko, Matheus Cunha, and Bryan Mbeumo – are immediately among Manchester United’s best players, but where exactly do they rank on the list?
Are they immediately in the top three, are they all in the top five, and how much will they really improve a team that finished in the bottom half of the Premier League table last season?
Here are the top five Manchester United players ranked in order before the 2025/26 season. Conspicuous by their absence are the defenders, who just missed the cut. It’s not easy comparing position by position, but at least Man United fans will be happy to see how the revamped attack is represented in the top five.
5. RM Amad Diallo
Amad Diallo was probably Manchester United’s second-best player last season behind captain Bruno Fernandes, and he was often the only spark Man United had in an attacking sense when it comes to taking defenders on and progressing play.
A lot of the young Ivorian’s best work was done before the shot actually happened, but the 23-year-old still scored 8 goals and 6 assists to go with 1.9 key passes and 2.7 combined dribbles completed and fouls drawn per game.
I think you can make strong cases for center backs Lisandro Martinez and Leny Yoro, but, ultimately, they just don’t change games like Diallo does and they aren’t as consistent.
Martinez is one of the best center backs in the Premier League when he’s healthy, but that’s unfortunately become a rare occurrence. Meanwhile, Yoro isn’t there yet at the Premier League level and had some difficulties transitioning from Lille last season. There’s been no such issue with Diallo.
Diallo is versatile enough to go for goals and assists as a traditional right winger in a front three, or he can chip in goals and assists but mostly provide progression and even strong covering as a wing back in the Ruben Amorim system. Either way, he’s a must-start for Manchester United and part of the future nucleus of the club.
4. ST Benjamin Sesko
Manchester United had to pay a lot more than anyone expected Benjamin Sesko to go for this season, and credit RB Leipzig for doing a great job of extracting as much capital as possible out of the Premier League giants this summer and giving the illusion that Sesko would stay another year.
Even so, I think Sesko for 85 million euros is very reasonable. He didn’t have as good of a season as Hugo Ekitike at Eintracht Frankfurt, but Ekitike also got to start alongside Omar Marmoush for half the year and then was the focal point of a pretty deep Eagles attack.
Meanwhile, Sesko had to fight tooth-and-nail for starts with Lois Openda. Ekitike and Sesko are about the same age and price, and while Ekitke is more well-rounded and better now, Sesko arguably has even more upside because he’s such a pure ball-striker and so good at dominating the box with his physicality.
Sesko is one of those guys who could be even better in the Premier League, and I see him having as successful of a transition to English football as Erling Haaland did from Dortmund to Manchester City. This is a guy who can become the 30-goal beast Manchester United have been begging for since, honestly, Robin van Persie’s brief peak at Old Trafford.
3. FW Bryan Mbeumo
I don’t see Bryan Mbeumo as a one-hit wonder by any means. The man is fully legit, and full credit to Thomas Frank at Brentford for unleashing a player who is one of the best athletes in the entire world of football and also one of the smartest attacking players.
Left-footed wingers who can score 20 goals in a season are a rare commodity, and the other two players of that profile in the Premier League, Mohamed Salah and Bukayo Saka, are centerpieces at Premier League title contenders and legitimate players on a Ballon d’Or ballot.
With the full force of the attacking players Mbeumo will have around him at Manchester United instead of, say, Yoane Wissa at striker and Mikel Damsgaard as a playmaker, it’s not unreasonable to think that Mbeumo can at least replicate his 20 goals and 7 assists in his breakout 2024/25 campaign with Brentford.
Now, I’m not saying Mbeumo is a Ballon d’Or candidate, but I am saying that he is one of the best forwards in the Premier League in his own right, a massive upgrade on what Manchester United had in terms of goal-scoring, and capable of offering more than just goals with his work rate and underrated creativity.
2. FW Matheus Cunha
Speaking of creativity, Matheus Cunha joins Bryan Mbeumo as two established Premier League stars from the 2024/25 season who inject goals and assists into a Man United side that had no players with double-digit goals and only one with double-digit assists (I’ll let you guess who that was).
Cunha is one of the most skilled footballers in the world, and, once again, I will link this obligatory viewing of his roulette into a chip goal at RB Leipzig that is legitimately one of the best in Bundesliga history.
Now 26 and in the prime of his career, Cunha has found his level in the Premier League after an unsuccessful stint with La Liga giants Atletico Madrid, and he really found his stride last season as the solution to Wolves, essentially keeping them up from relegation with 15 goals, 6 assists, and a whole lot of unsung work on and off the ball.
If Cunha can play like that on a completely dysfunctional team with no help and an acrimonious relationship with management, then imagine what he can do alongside Mbeumo, Sesko, and playmaking maven Bruno Fernandes.
The idea of Fernandes and Cunha pulling the strings together creatively and then Cunha ghosting in behind Sesko to supply him or pick up the scraps as a goal-scorer is quite tantalizing, and Cunha has the upside to be a sleeper Premier League Player of the Season candidate under the lights of Old Trafford.
1. AM Bruno Fernandes
There is no mistaking the fact that this is Bruno Fernandes’s team, and while he could very well be knocked off the top spot by one of the three talented goal-scoring attackers right behind him on this list, the Portuguese superstar is the No. 1 guy until further notice.
Ruben Amorim certainly fell into an unideal situation at Old Trafford after Erik ten Hag’s tenure, but at least he couldn’t have asked for a better veteran playmaker to lead the way than Fernandes, who can succeed in the traditional 10 role or as a deeper-lying player with the right ingredients around him.
Manchester United admittedly still have to cook up that formula, but Fernandes was a shining light last season with 8 goals, 10 assists, and 2.5 key passes per game, so often producing the only bits of real technical quality for the Red Devils.
Fernandes is one of those players who bases his game off technique, creativity, and a little bit of scrappiness, so at the age of 30, he’s actually still at the peak of his powers and should age gracefully. With Sesko, Cunha, and Mbeumo in tow, a 20-assists Premier League breakout akin his numbers at Sporting Lisbon isn’t entirely out of the question either.
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2011. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has contributed to sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. Joe’s work has appeared in ESPN, Bleacher Report, and Sports Illustrated. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling, respectively.