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Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Do not worry finding a real picture of that miss; background information is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. Nor will you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and creates many more chances. You run online for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the title. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred periods to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar 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 reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? We need an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has started on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this over the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means the only ones in this. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment explicitly geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, 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 desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on someone who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star finished. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience here.