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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry finding a real picture of him missing; context is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you highlight that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. If you run online for a large outlet, raw engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? Please a decision immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? Nor do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a big, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the freedom to attack but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. And of course, the media are not alone in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of it all, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now essentially content, product, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most visibly and cruelly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are already being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on a person who went to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.