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Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't worry locating an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would you note that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you run social media for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need a decision immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. He has started four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? And do I propose to replicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently stated that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the press are not the only ones in this. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an environment explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and harshly observed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on someone who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is losing something in this process.