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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Don't bother finding a real picture of that miss; background information is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Remember the emojis. Share it everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally features scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. And would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you manage social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of content spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the title. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. 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, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at United to date. He has started four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the license to rampage but also the leeway to fail. Partly 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 about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a viral chart handily stated that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not alone in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously 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 a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that happens in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is losing something here.