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Imagine this: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed an open goal. Do not bother finding a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Then, include statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. Nor will you highlight that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. If you manage online for a major brand, raw interaction is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content turns. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. 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 Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, context-free criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt 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 Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was an example of this during the international break, when a widely shared chart handily informed us that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means the only ones in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the center of this, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must always be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he meets their rivals on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. The coach 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 watch it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.