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Picture the following: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not bother finding an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a large, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Post it everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. And will you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You run online for a large outlet, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? We need a decision now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a big, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the license to attack but also the freedom to miss. 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 roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this over the international break, when a widely shared infographic conveniently stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially content, product, public property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most visibly and harshly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are now being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to detach from the saline drip of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit at present. But in a way, we're all losing something here.