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Imagine the following: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, place that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry locating a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Then, add statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And will you note that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you run online for a large outlet, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of content spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the title. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and memes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a square that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? And do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the license to attack but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an environment explicitly geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are now being disdained as failures. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on someone who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.