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Picture the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose it with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't bother finding an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor would you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you run social media for a large outlet, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content turns. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Simply ensure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? Please an answer immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, context-free condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given 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 right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared chart handily stated that the player had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. And of course, the media are not the only ones in this. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now basically material, commodity, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being disdained as failures. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, everyone is losing something here.