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Picture this: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Don't bother locating an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally includes scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would you note that several of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you run social media for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of online material spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the title. People will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? Please a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why Manchester 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 short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air 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 judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now essentially content, commodity, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must constantly be generating the big feelings. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.