📅 September 10, 2026
Confirmed: Sesko Starts, Dorgu at Left-Back, Tielemans Keeps His Place v Sabah
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Team sheets are in at Old Trafford. Benjamin Sesko makes his first start of the season, Patrick Dorgu plays left-back because Luke Shaw isn’t in the squad, and Youri Tielemans keeps his place where every predicted side had Andrey Santos. Four changes from Everton, and the derby is three days away.
United (4-2-3-1): Lammens; Mazraoui, Yoro, Martinez, Dorgu; Tielemans, Mainoo; Mbeumo, Fernandes, Cunha; Sesko.
Bench: Darlow, Mee, Dalot, Maguire, Heaven, Mount, Santos, Lacey, Tyler Fletcher, Amass, Rashford, Zirkzee.
Sabah (4-2-3-1): Pokatilov; Zedadka, McCarthy, Dashdamirov, Puchacz; Rakhmonaliev, Lepinjica; Parris, Simic, Nwachukwu; Mickels.
Bench: Ramazanov, Mirzammadov, Mutallimov, Almeida, Khaybulaev, Isayev, Rustamli, Queiroz, Rodrigo Fernandes, Mukhtarov, Mbina.
Sesko starts, and it took until game five
His last start was against Liverpool in May, before the shin injury that cost him pre-season. Three substitute appearances this season, one goal, the header at Everton on Sunday, and Carrick spent Wednesday saying “Ben is close” and “he’ll be part of each and every game”. Both predicted sides had him starting, and he does, with Matheus Cunha moving to the left and Marcus Rashford dropping to the bench after the muscle problem that took him off on Sunday.
That’s the front four of the second half at Hill Dickinson, the one that produced the Sesko goal, starting a game together for the first time.
Dorgu at left-back, because Shaw isn’t here
Shaw missed Wednesday’s open session on what Carrick called a “recovery day”, adding “it’s not an ongoing thing”. He isn’t in tonight’s squad. The club hasn’t said why, so treat that as unexplained rather than as an injury until it explains it.
The answer is Dorgu, which Carrick named as the internal option a week ago: “we just haven’t had to explore that, at some point we might have to.” He does it in training. Tonight he does it in the Champions League, against Kaheem Parris and with Tymoteusz Puchacz, Sabah’s set-piece taker, on his side of the pitch. Shaw is 31 and the only senior left-back at the club after a window that signed none, so this was always going to happen. The question was when.
Yoro and Mazraoui in, Maguire and Dalot out
Leny Yoro makes his first start of the season next to Lisandro Martinez, with Harry Maguire on the bench for the first time since Hull. Noussair Mazraoui returns at right-back, where he started the opener. Six goals conceded in three league games, two in every one of them, and Carrick has changed half the back four for the first European game in three seasons. Read it as rotation for Sunday if you like, but Maguire and Dalot on the bench for a home game United are expected to win comfortably is also a chance to see whether a different pair concedes fewer.
Tielemans, not Santos
The one call nobody predicted. ESPN and Sports Mole both had Santos in for Tielemans; Carrick keeps the Belgian, who has started all three league games, alongside Kobbie Mainoo. Santos is on the bench with Mount. On a Thursday-Sunday-Wednesday, keeping Tielemans here suggests he’s the one being rested against Brighton in the Carabao Cup, not against City.
A bench of twelve, and four of them academy
The Champions League allows twelve substitutes, so Carrick names Dermot Mee, Shea Lacey, Tyler Fletcher and Harry Amass alongside the senior group. With Mainoo starting, the run of an academy graduate in every matchday squad since 1937, which we wrote up last week, gets five of them tonight. Mount is in a squad for the second game running. Zirkzee still hasn’t played a minute this season. Amad, Baleba, Heaton, de Ligt and Ugarte are the absentees the club has already explained.
Sabah: Solvet missing, a 22-year-old at centre-back
The programme rated Steve Solvet and Rahman Dashdamirov as the centre-back pairing that got Sabah through four qualifying rounds. Solvet isn’t in the squad, not even on the bench, and Aden McCarthy, a 22-year-old South African, starts in his place. That is the softest spot on the pitch, and it’s the one Sesko will attack.
Otherwise Valdas Dambrauskas picks the side the programme described: 4-2-3-1, Stas Pokatilov in goal, Puchacz at left-back, Umarali Rakhmonaliev and Ivan Lepinjica as the pair, Veljko Simic, six goals in qualifying, behind Joy-Lance Mickels. Christian Nwachukwu, 20, starts wide over Aleksey Isayev. Tellur Mutallimov, whose 97th-minute volley kept them in the play-off, is on the bench. Khayal Aliyev isn’t in the squad, which settles the injury question the way the club said it would.
How to watch in the United States
- Kick-off: 3 PM Eastern, 12 PM Pacific, 8 PM in the UK.
- Streaming: Paramount+, which carries every Champions League match in the US.
- Officials: Wily Delajod of France, with Jerome Brisard on VAR.
It’s United’s 300th European Cup game, and the match report is here: 4-0, ten on target to none, first clean sheet of the season. Every league-phase kick-off is converted to Eastern time on the schedule page.
Sources: Confirmed line-ups, benches and formations from SofaScore’s match feed, flagged confirmed at 2 PM Eastern on 10 September 2026, and FotMob’s match page, which agree on both elevens and both benches. Carrick quotes from his press conferences of 4 and 9 September 2026 via manutd.com and The Peoples Person’s transcripts. Sesko’s last start and Everton substitutions from our match report. Sabah’s expected pairing and Aliyev’s injury from United Review Vol 88 Issue 02. Accurate as of kick-off, 10 September 2026.