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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Don't worry locating a real picture of that miss; background information is the enemy. Then, add statistics in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. And will you highlight that several of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. If you manage social media for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of content turns. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Just make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? We need an answer immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a big, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the license to rampage but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was a case of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared chart handily stated that the player had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an environment explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of takes and more takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit at present. However, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.