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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, place it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry finding an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Now, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you manage social media for a major brand, pure interaction is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. 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, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked 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. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? Please a decision now.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. He has started on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a big, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the license to rampage but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a viral chart conveniently informed us that the player had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the media are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of this, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now essentially material, product, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must always be producing the big feelings. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. The striker waste of money. 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 influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, unable 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.