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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not worry locating an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Then, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you note that four of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you run social media for a major brand, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of content turns. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy interview with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the title. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need a decision immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United to date. He has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And 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 popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded 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 right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, 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.

We saw an example of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic handily informed us that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that every single thing about them is now basically content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must constantly be producing the big feelings. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, everyone is sacrificing something here.