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Picture this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Do not worry locating an actual photo of that miss; background information is your adversary. Then, include statistics in a large, comical font. Remember the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and creates many more chances. You run online for a major brand, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of online material turns. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? Nor do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel passionately 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 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to attack but also the freedom to miss. 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 about the time it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a widely shared chart handily informed us that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now basically content, product, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.