Gyokeres above Sesko in Amorim ranking of top ten Man Utd striker targets
Manchester United have at long, long last completed the signing of Bryan Mbeumo from Brentford and now selling clubs can prepare to put a wedge of United tax on their strikers as the Red Devils signpost their next transfer attack.
Here’s a top ten of strikers linked with a move to Old Trafford this summer, ranked according to how much Ruben Amorim wants them to lead his line next season as we enter the mind of the Portuguese boss.
10) Christopher Nkunku (Chelsea)
For us there’s a 50/50 chance of Nkunku being very good for his next club after Chelsea. Those odds dip significantly in favour of him continuing to be a bit pants if that next club is in the Premier League.
We realise this is a hackneyed point, but he doesn’t look like he’s physically up to the rigours of the English top flight and Amorim really needs a striker who’s going to bully defenders rather than shy away from a battle as Nkunku often seems to do. He may have worked in one of the spots set to be occupied by Matheus Cunha or Mbeumo, but not as the focal point.
9) Nicolas Jackson (Chelsea)
We did our best to get Jackson higher up this list and there are few things we would enjoy more than him proving 99 per cent of punters wrong by thriving as a first-choice striker at a big club.
But having defended him for much of the last two seasons, after the performances of Liam Delap and particularly Joao Pedro at the Club World Cup played a significant part in driving Chelsea to that trophy and in the minds of some makes the Blues contenders of sorts for the coming season, we now accept that the very highest level is likely too high for the Senegal striker.
Chelsea would not be a concern for Liverpool and the other title chasers if Jackson was still the starting No.9.
He would massively improve United, but then yer da would, and Amorim will want a striker for the long-term who has a decent chance of becoming world class if they’re not already, and we’ve probably now seen enough of Jackson to know that’s highly unlikely to happen in his case.
READ MORE: Man Utd fourth in biggest transfer summer spenders of 2025 after Mbeumo deal finally done
8) Moise Kean (Fiorentina)
While we’re bang up for United being entirely duped by Kean’s 25-goal season and for him to be as disappointing for them as he was for Everton, we actually think he could be really good.
It seems as though the required click to get him into gear after a string of false starts at some very big football clubs happened last season. His first move to the Premier League just came too early and while we wouldn’t advise him to move to Old Trafford as it’s absolutely not the place to move to after a first truly successful goalscoring season, it feels like a smart move for United to tap into potential that’s only just starting to be realised.
7) Goncalo Ramos (PSG)
Amorim would snap your hand off for his PSG goal rate of one every 111 minutes and he’s got the sort of profile he’s after – big, strong, runs in behind, links the play well.
The worry will be whether Ramos is capable of replicating that rate as a starting No.9 and while he got close for Benfica in his last season before moving to the Ligue 1 giants, that’s unlikely to ease concerns as that’s Benfica and this is Manchester United.
But the ship has sailed for anti-Big Five European league banalities, United aren’t about to sign a 24-year-old striker who’s scored 20 goals in the Bundesliga or La Liga, because a) there about three of them, and b) they already play for far superior clubs than Manchester United.
6) Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa)
We’re all imagining another Casemiro situation where United chase one of these younger strikers for the next few weeks, turn to Watkins as a safe but calloused pair of ageing hands on deadline day and pay roughly £20m over his valuation to ensure they don’t have Rasmus Hojlund leading the line next season.
We’ll all be told by United-leaning pundits and publications that this is actually exactly what United need as Watkins can lead the line and provide Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee breathing space to develop as backups, only for Watkins’ dramatic decline in the space of a season to necessitate one or other of the alternatives to take the reins and prove beyond doubt what we know already – that they’re not good enough for what Manchester United want to be either.
But – and this is a big BUT – Watkins will almost certainly be pretty good for a while, and Amorim may well be thinking about the short-term in regards to his own future at the club. And if he’s not, he should be.
READ MORE: Ranking and reassigning Aston Villa’s ten most valuable stars amid transfer window stasis
5) Samu Aghehowa (Porto)
He came very close to moving to Chelsea in a sort of swap deal for Conor Gallagher last summer but backed away from talks over an image rights disagreement, instead moving to Porto from Atlético Madrid before scoring 27 goals for the Portuguese side last term.
Aghehowa may be the biggest risk of any striker on this list but also has arguably the highest ceiling.
4) Jean-Philippe Mateta (Crystal Palace)
Mateta is far closer to Watkins than Aghehowa in the you-know-what-you’re-gonna-get stakes. He’s a striker whose Premier League career can be split down the middle – it’s astonishing to think he was lumped in with Odsonne Edouard as a pair of interchangeable Crystal Palace strikers before Oliver Glasner arrived to not only reignite his career but take it to another level.
He’s scored 30 goals in 59 games under Glasner, including 13 against the Big Six plus Newcastle and Aston Villa, and we’re guessing him being so good under one coach compared to others may concern Amorim. But if he’s good enough for Liverpool he’s absolutely good enough for United.
3) Randal Kolo Muani (PSG)
We’re guessing most of you wonderful F365 readers are similar to us in that your opinions on Kolo Muani are largely based on his displays for France, particularly him coming on in the World Cup final to entirely change the game against Argentina, in which case you would see this as quite the coup for Manchester United.
He earned a move to PSG on the back of that tournament but barely played, making his six-month loan at Juventus arguably a better barometer for success at Old Trafford along with those displays for his national team. He scored ten goals for the Old Lady, who would be signing him permanently if they had the cash.
2) Benjamin Sesko (RB Leipzig)
A striker signing for a Big Six club without European football hasn’t gone well historically, but that’s more something for Sesko to think about than Manchester United, who could provide us with the dream scenario of Arsenal’s top target banging in goals at Old Trafford while the Red Devils’ preferred option flops at the Emirates.
READ MORE: Sesko to Man Utd: £134m worth of Big Six strikers who made the same mistake
1) Viktor Gyokeres (Sporting)
We’ve been treated to some intermediary sh*thousery in the last couple of days, with several Portuguese outlets informed of United coming back in for Gyokeres, which appears to be news to United, Gyokeres, Sporting and anyone else involved in his future, just to give Arsenal the willies.
Like the lead in a coming-of-age high school drama imploring a love interest to ‘want me for being me’, Amorim said back in April that he would only want to sign Gyokeres if he wanted to join Manchester United for Manchester United, independent of Champions League football.
Our guess is that Amorim would actually welcome a kicking and screaming Gyokeres through the Old Trafford doors in the knowledge that the Sweden international is absolutely ideal for his 3-4-3 system having thrived under him at Sporting, and Gyokeres would surely have to put a brave face on things anyway and insist that his father save further tears over a failed Arsenal move for private settings.
