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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Do not bother locating a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Then, include statistics in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Post it across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you note that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more chances. You manage social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? Please a decision now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to generate instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. He has started four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral chart handily informed us that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now essentially content, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch 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 opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.