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Picture this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Don't worry finding a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Then, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share the image everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. And would you note that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you manage social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to scan a lengthy podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Simply make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. People will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce permanent verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at United to date. He has started four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? And do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a big, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to attack but also the freedom to miss. Partly 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 pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral chart handily stated that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about them is now essentially content, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps 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 whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit at present. But in a way, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.