United players back Shaw over left-back signing but urge Carrick to find Sesko a strike partner

Manchester United’s players are broadly comfortable with Luke Shaw remaining the club’s only specialist left-back heading into the new season, but the dressing room believes the failure to sign a second striker is a more significant gap in Michael Carrick’s squad, according to The Athletic.

United allowed the summer transfer window to close without adding cover for Shaw, despite the position being widely flagged as a priority. The England international played all 38 Premier League games last season, and United now face a heavier schedule following their return to the Champions League. The club explored moves for Myles Lewis-Skelly and Lewis Hall, and were linked with Barcelona’s Alejandro Balde, but none of those deals progressed.

Carrick has options in the form of Patrick Dorgu, who he tends to use in a more advanced role, and right-backs Diogo Dalot and Noussair Mazraoui, but none represents a natural left-back alternative. The United manager has pushed back against the suggestion that the squad is under-resourced, arguing that building a title-challenging group is a gradual process.

“What squad’s ever the perfect squad? You’ve always got to find ways of adapting,” Carrick said. “It’s not going to be one hit. It’s not just an instant fix and you finish top of the league and you stay there.”

The players’ perspective on the left-back situation is shaped largely by their faith in Shaw and the goodwill he has built up at the club over many years. The dressing room does not view his lack of direct competition as a crisis.

The striker question is a different matter. United signed Benjamin Sesko this summer but the squad believes he still needs a partner to share the load, with the feeling that Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha would both benefit from being freed to operate in their more natural wide positions rather than filling in centrally.

United’s summer business was dominated by midfield investment, with Youri Tielemans, Andrey Santos and Carlos Baleba arriving for a combined £155 million. Carrick acknowledged that financial considerations shaped the club’s recruitment decisions, though he was careful to avoid framing it as a straightforward case of budget restrictions.