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Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Do not bother locating an actual photo of that miss; background information is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. Nor will you note that four of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more chances. If you run social media for a major brand, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of online material spins. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? We need a decision immediately.

Sesko 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 withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast 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

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to miss. And in part this is why 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 watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

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 football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in this. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now basically operating along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially content, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse 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 visibly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on someone who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

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 watch it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, something that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. However, we're all sacrificing something here.