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Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Do not worry finding a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Remember 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 his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. And would you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. You run social media for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of content turns. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? Please an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to produce permanent verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to replicate 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 popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a widely shared chart handily stated that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed 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 another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit right now. However, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience here.