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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed an open goal. Don't worry locating an actual photo of that miss; context is your adversary. Then, include statistics in a large, silly font. Remember the emojis. Share it everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you note that four of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. If you manage social media for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of online material turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has started on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license to attack but also the freedom to fail. 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 summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf 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 infographic handily stated that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be producing the strong emotions. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are already being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko meets their rivals on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience in this process.