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Picture this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose it with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not worry finding a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Remember the emojis. Post it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor would you note that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. If you manage social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? We need an answer immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent 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 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 ten strikes to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a big, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the license to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw a case of this over the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the media are not alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being disdained as failures. 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 feels appropriate that he meets their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on a person who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all losing something in this process.