Manchester United forwards Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko have withdrawn from national team squads for Cameroon and Slovenia this month because of fitness concerns. Both players will miss their nations’ upcoming fixtures and remain with United as the club manages their recovery ahead of the season’s final run.<\/p>\n
\u0160e\u0161ko has been carrying an issue while playing for United and his withdrawal should “ensure that he fully recovers from an issue that United have been carefully managing throughout recent weeks.” Slovenia only have friendlies scheduled rather than World Cup qualifiers, a factor that, along with the fact that both Cameroon and Slovenia will miss the World Cup, likely made the decision easier for all parties.<\/p>\n
Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko have each scored 10 goals for United this season, with nine apiece in the Premier League. Mbeumo began the campaign in better form following his move from Brentford but has not added to his tally in the last six weeks. \u0160e\u0161ko experienced a slower adaptation to life in a new league and country, yet has found form more recently, scoring eight of his goals in 2026 alone.<\/p>\n
There appears to be nothing serious about either player not reporting for their national teams. Fellow United player Noussair Mazraoui will report for Morocco after illness briefly put his involvement in doubt. Morocco continue World Cup preparations with friendlies against Ecuador and Paraguay.<\/p>\n
Maintaining the fitness of Mbeumo and \u0160e\u0161ko for the final stretch after the international break is important to Manchester United\u2019s prospects. Dropping points against Bournemouth could have been a more damaging setback for Michael Carrick\u2019s Red Devils in their pursuit of Champions League qualification. United remain third in the Premier League table, with fourth-place Aston Villa closing to a single point. Defeats for Chelsea and Liverpool over the weekend increased United\u2019s advantage over those rivals.<\/p>\n
With five English teams progressing to quarterfinals across the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League last week, England now looks likely to secure a fifth Champions League berth. United hold a seven-point cushion over sixth-place Chelsea with seven games remaining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mbeumo and \u0160e\u0161ko withdraw from international duty with fitness concerns while United chase top four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[961,1083,172],"tags":[317,260],"class_list":["post-9477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-man-utd","category-epl","tag-benjamin-sesko","tag-bryan-mbeumo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}