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Picture 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 an open goal. Do not bother finding an actual photo of that miss; context is the enemy. Now, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor will you highlight that four of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more chances. You manage social media for a major brand, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of online material spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one needs that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? We need a decision immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, context-free criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a big, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the license to rampage but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this over the international break, when a widely shared infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. And of course, the press are by no means alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an environment explicitly geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the center of this, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, product, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on a person who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we browse through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.