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Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not bother locating an actual photo of that miss; background information is your adversary. Then, add statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you highlight that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content turns. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Simply ensure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? We need a decision immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. He has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this over the national team pause, when a viral chart handily informed us that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the press are by no means the only ones in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem 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 irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting players, praising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit at present. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.