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Picture the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not worry finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, add some goal stats in a big, silly font. Remember the emojis. Share the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. If you manage online for a major brand, pure interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of content turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch 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 staking their claims. The summer market is closed. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although 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 right now? Please a decision now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, context-free criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? And will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko 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 miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared chart conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. 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: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now basically material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and more takes. It may be this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.