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Imagine this: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Don't worry locating a real picture of that miss; background information is your adversary. Then, add statistics in a large, silly font. Remember the emojis. Share it everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. If you manage online for a large outlet, raw engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite periods 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 season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? Please a decision now.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the freedom to attack but also the freedom to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was an example of this during the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in this. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now essentially content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting players, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.