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Imagine this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't worry locating an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you highlight that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you run online for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of content turns. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute interview with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Just make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. People will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred periods to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? 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 two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to generate instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has started four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a big, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently stated that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the press are not the only ones in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of this, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now basically material, product, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be producing the strong emotions. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are now being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is losing something in this process.