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Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, place that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't bother finding a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a large, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share the image everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. Nor will you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you run online for a major brand, pure interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to scan a 44-minute podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite 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 major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? We need an answer immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to produce instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time 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 had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the freedom to attack but also the freedom to fail. Partly 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 about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this over the national team pause, when a viral chart handily stated that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the media are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, product, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on a person who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps 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 talking points and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.