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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not worry locating an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. And will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. If you run social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. People will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to produce permanent verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent 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 of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the freedom to attack but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time 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 likely to receive.

We saw an example of this during the international break, when a widely shared chart handily informed us that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the press are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of it all, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as failures. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.