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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Do not bother locating a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. You run online for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. People will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? Please an answer now.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has started four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt to duplicate 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 podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at his former club: a big, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to attack 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 handed down in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are not alone in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of this, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now basically content, product, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

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, something that happens in the background while we browse through our devices, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience in this process.