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Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not bother finding a real picture of that miss; background information is the enemy. Then, include some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Post the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And would you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. If you manage online for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long 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. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? Please an answer now.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? Nor do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the license to rampage but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why Manchester 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 watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw an example of this over the international break, when a widely shared infographic handily informed us that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the media are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must always be producing the big feelings. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting 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. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, something that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is losing something here.