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Imagine the following: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place that with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not bother locating a real picture of that miss; context is the enemy. Then, include statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor would you note that four of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more chances. You manage social media for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of content turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. 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 solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And 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 podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license 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 handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are not alone in this. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of this, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are already being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on someone who went to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps 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 watch it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.