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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Do not bother locating an actual photo of that miss; context is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor would you note that four of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. If you run social media for a large outlet, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of content spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite times to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? Please an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. He has started four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? And do I propose to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly 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 pitiless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was a case of this over the international break, when a viral infographic handily stated that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the media are by no means alone in this. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle 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, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, incapable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience here.