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Picture this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Do not worry finding a real picture of that miss; context is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor would you note that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. You manage online for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn 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. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has started on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the license to attack but also the freedom to fail. 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 summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was an example of this during the international break, when a viral infographic handily stated that the player had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? 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, commodity, public property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, partly 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, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are now being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on someone who went to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Their star finished. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is losing something in this process.