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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Don't worry finding an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you manage online for a major brand, raw engagement is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need a decision immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free 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 stint at Manchester United so far. He has started four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite 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 abilities: afforded the license to attack but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a widely shared infographic conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – 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 a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are now being dismissed as failures. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.