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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place that with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't worry finding a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Then, add statistics in a big, silly font. Remember the emojis. Share it across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would you highlight that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you run social media for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content turns. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one needs that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long 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 reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? Please an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the freedom to attack but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration 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 likely to receive.

We saw a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared chart handily stated that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not alone in this. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are now being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on someone who popped to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, 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 scroll through our devices, incapable to detach from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, we're all losing something in this process.