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Picture this: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't bother finding an actual photo of that miss; context is your adversary. Then, 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 tally includes strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. And would you note that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of content turns. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? Please an answer immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to generate instant verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and memes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? And do I propose to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the freedom to attack but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this over the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in this. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment explicitly geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of this, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he meets their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. However, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.