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Picture this: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place it with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed an open goal. Don't bother locating an actual photo of that miss; context is the enemy. Now, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. And would you note that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you manage social media for a major brand, pure interaction is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred periods to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new 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 multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? Please an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? And will I attempt to duplicate 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 deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the freedom to attack but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this during the international break, when a viral infographic handily stated that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of this, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience here.