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Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place that with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Do not worry finding an actual photo of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, include statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Share it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And will you note that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. If you manage online for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of online material turns. The next job is to scan a lengthy podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? Please a decision now.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to produce permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. The guy has started four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the license to rampage but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: 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 pitiless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic handily stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now essentially content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that happens in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. However, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.