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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Do not bother finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Post it across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. And will you note that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? Please an answer now.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? Nor do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this during the international break, when a viral chart conveniently stated that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are by no means the only ones in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, 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 center of it all, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically material, product, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on someone who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.