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Picture the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Don't bother locating an actual photo of him missing; context is your adversary. Now, include statistics in a big, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you note that four of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. People will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? We need an answer immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at United to date. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a powerful, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to attack but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic handily informed us that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the media are by no means the only ones in this. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of this, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.