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Picture this: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't bother locating a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a large, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Post it everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you note that several of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and creates many more chances. If you run social media for a major brand, raw interaction is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of online material spins. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply ensure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, context-free criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", 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 (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching 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 right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral infographic handily informed us that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the press are by no means the only ones in this. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are now being dismissed as failures. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on a person who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, something that happens in the background while we browse through our devices, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit at present. However, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.