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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, place that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't worry finding an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a large, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more chances. If you manage social media for a major brand, raw interaction is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? Please a decision immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to produce permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, context-free condemnations and pointless contrasts, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. He has started on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to miss. And in part 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 largest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this during the international break, when a widely shared chart conveniently stated that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are by no means the only ones in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the middle of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now basically content, product, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience here.