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Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not bother finding an actual photo of that miss; context is your adversary. Then, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Post it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And will you note that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you run social media for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe 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 coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? We need an answer immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and memes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? And do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a big, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license to rampage but also the leeway to miss. Partly 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 roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless 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 chart handily stated that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the center of it all, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially content, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and harshly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the background while we scroll through our phones, unable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit at present. However, everyone is losing something in this process.