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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you manage social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred periods to observe football. Leaves fall, 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 planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? Please an answer immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, context-free criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the license to rampage but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why 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 short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a widely shared infographic conveniently stated that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he meets their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on someone who went to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe 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 reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the background while we browse through our devices, unable to detach from the saline drip of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience here.