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Picture this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, place that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not bother locating an actual photo of that miss; context is your adversary. Then, include statistics in a big, comical font. Remember 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 does not compete in Europe? Of course not. And would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more chances. You manage social media for a major brand, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of online material spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply make sure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, out-of-context condemnations and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. He has started on four occasions 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? Nor will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. 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 roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf 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 international break, when a widely shared infographic handily stated that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are now being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to detach from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, we're all sacrificing something here.