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Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed an open goal. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; context is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And would you note that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. If you manage online for a major brand, raw interaction is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of content turns. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute 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"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just make sure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue 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 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a big, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the license to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why 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 widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this over the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. And of course, the media are not alone in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now basically material, product, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are now being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces their rivals on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, something that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.