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Picture this: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Do not worry finding an actual photo of that miss; context is the enemy. Then, include statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And will you highlight that several 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 manage online for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of content turns. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn 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. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? We need an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide 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, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? Nor do I propose to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a big, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the license to attack but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw an example of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared chart conveniently stated that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the media are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation 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 every single thing about them is now basically material, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on someone who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is losing something here.