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Picture the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not worry locating a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Then, include some goal stats in a big, comical font. Remember the emojis. Post it everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will 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 large outlet, pure interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

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, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? We need a decision immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and pointless comparisons, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at United to date. The guy has started four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to attack but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why Manchester 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 short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic handily informed us that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the press are not alone in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now essentially content, product, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are now being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

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 repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we scroll through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit at present. However, we're all sacrificing something in this process.