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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not bother locating an actual photo of that miss; context is your adversary. Then, add statistics in a big, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you note that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you run social media for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of content turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute podcast with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? We need an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to generate instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the freedom to rampage 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 roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the media are not the only ones in this. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative 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 backdrop while we scroll through our devices, incapable to detach from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience here.