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Picture this: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not worry locating a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, include some goal stats in a large, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. Nor will you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and generates many more chances. You manage online for a large outlet, raw engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, context-free criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the license to rampage but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw an example of this during the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently stated that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. And of course, the media are not the only ones in this. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting players, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. It may be this player taking the hit at present. But in a way, we're all sacrificing something in this process.