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Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not worry finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a large, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And will you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. You manage social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of content turns. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Simply make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the title. People will be outraged.

This Time of Promise 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, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? Please a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? Nor do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the license to rampage but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was an example of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart handily informed us that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not the only ones in this. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and cruelly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.