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Imagine the following: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't bother locating a real picture of him missing; context is your adversary. Now, add statistics in a large, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. Nor will you note that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a major brand, raw interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of online material spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one needs that. Just make sure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period 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. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? We need a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to produce instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and pointless comparisons, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide 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 highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? And do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded 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 handed down in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently stated that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, commodity, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and cruelly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are now being dismissed as failures. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he meets their rivals on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, we're all losing a part of the experience here.