Louis Saha Exclusive: Dream signing Benzema would Shake up United's Front Line

Louis Saha spoke to BettingOdds.com yesterday. The ex-Manchester United forward said he believes the dream signing of Karim Benzema would shake up Manchester United’s front-line, he also reacted to Gibbs-White’s recent comments and agreed that the Man Utd players don’t want to be there and how it would be unfair of Man Utd to rely on Hojlund as their only number nine.

Manchester United have just one win in their last five Premier League matches. The pressure is mounting on Erik ten Hag. Are you confident that he will be given more time at United by the new co-owners? 

“Yes, I think the strategy is to keep ten Hag. If they want to have more consistency then changing the manager is a silly move. He needs to improve and his players need to improve and that’s totally normal. Any time a new owner comes in, they will ask for things to be done in a certain way and that needs to be respected, I think ten Hag is part of the plan.”

After the loss to Nottingham Forest, ten Hag blamed the club’s poor season on the injuries in the first-team squad. Do you think he should be getting more out of the squad despite these injuries? 

“Yes, we can expect more from this team. The team that he puts out is still better than most teams and they still lose. It’s not easy because they need consistency in their lineup especially defensively. When you change every weekend it’s not helpful, but still, some good players make silly mistakes. You can see a lack of confidence and you need a base of players who are very consistent with their confidence. It’s a tough job ten Hag has, it’s not an easy place to manage. Some players they’re missing are huge, Martinez, Casemiro, but that’s why they have a squad and the current players should be delivering more.”

In Forest’s pre-match huddle, Morgan Gibbs-White was seen telling his teammates that “the Man Utd players didn’t want to be there”. Do the body language and effort levels of some of the current players concern you?

"This is something that is new, this didn’t happen to me before. We had a lot of charisma and confident players, the manager also helped deliver that confidence. We had some really strong performances over the year, so any opposition realised it was going to be tough for them. 

In the last few years at United, it’s been shocking performances, players don’t know where to run and it’s true, sometimes they don’t want to be there, you can see the body language of the players. They need to change their body language and the way they approach the game. You can’t go to any games with this body language and that’s why confident players will identify that and feed it back to their team.

If you have one or two players with a nonchalant attitude that’s fine but if you have six or seven, it’s dangerous."

Hojlund scored his first Premier League goal recently. However, he has largely struggled so far. You know the pressures of being a striker for this club, do you think Manchester United is the right club for his development at such a young age?

"It’s the right club for him, but it’s unfair to give him the responsibility of the number nine position alone without an experienced player around him. You can have really talented wingers or offensive midfielders, but being a striker is a different mentality. You need someone to show you runs in the box and I don’t think he can see them, the Premier League is a tough league for stuff like that. I played with Van Nistelrooy and Solskjaer. I had the chance to look at those legends and learn my runs and skills from them.

Even the wingers don’t know what to do. It’s really hard for Hojlund to find space when the guys who are supposed to give him the ball don’t know where to go. It’s really hard, Antony constantly comes back inside and always finds a way to shoot, that’s not good enough for a striker. As an experienced number nine, I would be fuming, this is useless. This is not the way I will score goals, most goals from a number nine come from between the goalkeeper and the defenders, not between four or five players. Rashford on the left is pretty much the same."

Our Thoughts

Although Karim Benzema is now settled in the Saudi Pro League, United look set to embark on a new journey next season potentially under a new manager and they will be looking to add to their frontline in the process despite the signs of improvement shown by Rasmus Hojlund over the course of the 2023/2024 campaign.

So how will United fare next season? Where do the bookies see the Red Devils finishing under their new leadership team? Get the latest Premier League betting odds here and don't forget to take advantage of some free betting offers ahead of the campaign getting underway.

As a striker, what advice would you give to Hojlund and which parts of his game would you want to work on with him if you were on the training ground? 

"Look at Karim Benzema, maybe not the quickest and strongest, but he’s very clever inside the box. The type of runs he makes need to be studied in a way. If you’re like Mbappe who is very quick he will get the ball early because he has that early advantage, Hojlund is not that quick he’s a big lad so he needs the mentality where he looks for links between his midfielders and wingers. 

When you look at players like Ibrahimovic, Van Persie and Van Nistelrooy they will go to their wingers and say if they do that, they’re not going to play, the striker should be the one scoring goals. It’s very hard to ask that of Hojlund, but that’s what he needs to do otherwise it will take him another year to adapt."

Karim Benzema rumoured to be unhappy in Saudi, reportedly returned to Spain for a few days. Would you like to see him at United?

"Of course, he will shake up the United frontline and that’s what they need. He will definitely score goals and he will link up the play a lot better. It’s just a dream, but Karim is still a very professional guy, he’s the type of striker that Hojlund will learn from, but that’s just a fantasy."

Jadon Sancho is reportedly close to returning to Borussia Dortmund. Does it surprise you that he hasn’t stayed in the Premier League?

"I’m not surprised he’s going. He made his own choice, it’s a pity, it’s worse than bad body language, not willing to play. When you’re a young kid you just want to play and shut the mouth of all those that criticise you. You do whatever it takes to play and he’s not willing to. So he doesn’t deserve to be in the Man Utd squad, he’s shown too much ego. Whatever ten Hag has done, it’s his rules, you don’t disrespect him. Maybe sometimes a player will refuse to play when they’re 27 or 28. I would wait for the market to open up and move on."

After seeing how United have spent their transfer budget lately, are you still confident in the club’s ability to find impactful players in the January transfer window?

"Man Utd are still a massive club and they have an advantage because of that. There are big players in the squad that have a lot of contacts and can help. There’s a difficulty with finances because when you are not playing well, agents come in and take advantage of the situation. Agents will say they need guarantees because I don’t want my player destroyed like Sancho, Martial, and Antony. They will use that as an excuse to increase prices. 

United needs to find players who want to play for the shirt, it should be easy but it’s often hard with agents trying to find the best deal. There are good players out there who have the right attitude and confidence, the right conversations just need to happen. This is why Sir Alex Ferguson was so good, he would take 6 months to have these talks and understand the players."

Amad Diallo is linked with Ipswich Town. Do you think he should go out on loan again or should ten Hag be giving Diallo more game time?

"From what I’ve seen, there’s some movement that I really like. He’s really confident but physically he needs to improve. What we have now is not good enough, he can definitely distribute well, he has that kind of calmness that is needed and I’ve been impressed with his understanding between Wan-Bissaka. We will have to see the next two games to see how he does. He can be a good player for Man Utd, he’s been unlucky with injuries and has been sent out on loan. There is a space to take in the squad and he can definitely fight for it."

The club activated a one-year clause that will keep Victor Lindelof at the club until 2025. United had the same option with Raphael Varane, but chose not to trigger the extension. Varane is now free to negotiate with foreign clubs. What do you think of these decisions? 

"I don’t know the difference between salaries but you’d think Varane is on a higher salary than Lindelof, maybe he’s been injured too much to justify this salary. Lately, he has done very well. Lindelof is more reliable, I’m not saying he will be happy to be on the bench but he won’t complain or ask for much if. He wants to play every week but he won’t expect as much as Varane. When Varane is playing at the highest level he is a big asset for the club, especially last year when he was playing with Martinez, I would have loved to see that more but that’s not been the case.

Varane has struggled a bit and perhaps that is why the manager has struggled slightly. It’s always a big discussion with the agent, they can disturb the players easily, whether they use the media or not."

Andre Onana will now be departing for the African Cup of Nations with Cameroon. Altay Bayindir will presumably fill in. Given Onana’s form, do you think the number one shirt is up for grabs?

"Yes, this spot is open. I love the potential Onana has but I expected more from him. He’s a good goalkeeper but he has to prove that. As a goalkeeper, he has made too many mistakes, goals that you think he should save, but he hasn’t. He stays on his line when he shouldn’t or makes some bad choices, all these things open up spaces for competition. The situation when you have a keeper that isn’t playing well, he has to be threatened by competition, that’s why the number two has to step up and prove he is better than the number one and that’s it."