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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not worry finding a real picture of that miss; background information is your adversary. Then, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. You manage online for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, 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 summer market is closed. 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 least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? Please a decision immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to generate permanent verdicts, a constant stream of takes and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a big, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to attack but also the freedom to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was a case of this over the international break, when a viral chart conveniently informed us that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. 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 operating along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be producing the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most visibly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are now being dismissed as failures. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on a person who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, we're all losing something here.