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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Don't worry finding a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Remember the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor will you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you run online for a major brand, pure interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? We need a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

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 imperative to delay definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this over the international break, when a widely shared infographic handily stated that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the press are by no means alone in this. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of this, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are now being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we scroll through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.