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Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Don't bother finding an actual photo of that miss; context is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you note that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. If you run online for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of content spins. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? We need an answer now.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a big, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic handily informed us that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are by no means alone in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

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 producing the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly observed 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, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

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 reaction, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.