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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Do not worry finding a real picture of that miss; context is the enemy. Then, include some goal stats in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Share it everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more chances. If you manage social media for a major brand, raw engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of content turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Simply ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. People will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? And do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a big, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to attack but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, 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 national team pause, when a widely shared chart conveniently informed us that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means alone in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? 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, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be generating the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets 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 filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience in this process.