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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Do not worry locating a real picture of him missing; context is your adversary. Then, include some goal stats in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Share it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. And will you highlight that several of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You manage online for a major brand, raw engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred periods to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. 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 inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to generate instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and memes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. 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 evaluating? And do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a viral chart handily stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the media are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, commodity, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are now being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry 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 Sesko meets their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the background while we scroll through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all sacrificing something here.