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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Do not worry finding a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, include statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image across all platforms.

Will you mention 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 highlight that several of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. You manage online for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute podcast with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Simply ensure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? Please an answer immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to produce permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? And do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the license to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was a case of this over the international break, when a widely shared chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the press are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, 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 ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of this, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now basically material, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, 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 wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. It may be this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, we're all losing something in this process.