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Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not worry finding a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, add statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. And will 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 creates many more chances. If you manage social media for a large outlet, raw interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one needs that. Just ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? We need an answer immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a widely shared chart conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of this, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the background while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit at present. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something here.