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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed an open goal. Don't bother finding a real picture of that miss; background information is your adversary. Then, include statistics in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Post the image across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And would you note that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. You run online for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of content spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy podcast with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. 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 no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth 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, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the license to attack but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this during the international break, 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 poll of 20 agents. And of course, the press are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of this, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now essentially material, product, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience in this process.