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Picture the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Don't bother locating a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Then, include some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. And would you note that several of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. You manage online for a large outlet, pure interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite times to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? Please an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? And do I propose to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the freedom to attack but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest 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 over the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an environment 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 irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now basically content, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and reaction, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. However, we're all losing something here.