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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed an open goal. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a large, comical font. Remember the emojis. Post it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. And will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. If you manage online for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of online material turns. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has long 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 reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. The guy has started four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the freedom to attack but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared chart handily stated that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in this. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles 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 controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the center of this, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, product, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most visibly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting players, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on someone who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe 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 watch it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, we're all sacrificing something here.