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Picture the following: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it 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 an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a big, comical font. Remember the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Of course 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 chances. If you manage online for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of online material spins. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute podcast with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply ensure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite periods to watch 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 coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while 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 best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has started four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to replicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the license to attack but also the leeway to fail. And in part 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 gulf between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently stated that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not alone in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation 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 each aspect about players is now basically content, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are now being disdained as failures. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that happens in the background while we browse through our phones, incapable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit right now. However, everyone is sacrificing something here.