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Imagine the following: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, place that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not bother finding a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Then, add statistics in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. Nor would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. If you manage online for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and extract 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 needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. People will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and memes, context-free criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United to date. The guy has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the freedom to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly 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 roughly the duration it takes to load a short advertisement, 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 a case of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic handily informed us that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the media are by no means the only ones in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, unable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something here.