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Imagine this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't worry finding a real picture of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Remember the emojis. Post it everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. And will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and generates many more chances. You run online for a large outlet, raw interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of content turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply ensure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. People will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, 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. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. 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 immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype 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 develop. And the imperative to produce permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at United so far. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor 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 argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a big, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest 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 viral infographic handily stated that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now basically aligned 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 stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about them is now basically material, product, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must always be producing the strong emotions. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? 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 league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on someone who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit at present. However, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.