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Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not worry finding a real picture of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. And would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You manage social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of online material turns. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Simply make sure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? We need an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce permanent verdicts, a constant stream of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at United to date. He has started four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a big, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are not the only ones in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about them is now essentially content, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be producing the strong emotions. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are already being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

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 repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, something that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.