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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't bother locating an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, add statistics in a large, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. And will you highlight that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. If you run social media for a major brand, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of online material turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute podcast with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, 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 quadruple yet. Everyone 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 least favourite times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? We need a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. He has started 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 evaluating? Nor will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the license to attack but also the freedom to fail. And in part 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 short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for 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 aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now basically content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed as broken goods. 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 Sesko faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. However, everyone is sacrificing something here.