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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not worry locating an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would you note that four of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. 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.

So the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Simply ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? We need a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at United to date. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a big, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving 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 widest and most pitiless gulf between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic conveniently stated that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

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 reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.