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Imagine this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Do not worry finding an actual photo of that miss; context is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share the image across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. And will you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. You manage online for a major brand, pure interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite periods to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same 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. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? We need an answer immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the freedom to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: 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 gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a widely shared chart conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are by no means the only ones in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, product, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be producing the big feelings. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are now being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative 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, an activity that happens in the background while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience in this process.