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Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Do not bother locating an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember the emojis. Post the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. Nor would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be furious.

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 planting their flags. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? We need an answer now.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a square that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to fail. 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 short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw an example of this during the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently stated that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the press are by no means alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must always be producing the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.