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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Don't bother finding a real picture of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, add some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Of course not. And would you note that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more chances. If you manage online for a large outlet, raw engagement is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of content spins. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute interview with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Simply make sure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? Please a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and memes, context-free condemnations and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the license to attack but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this over the international break, when a viral infographic handily informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. 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?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store half an hour 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 watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be this player taking the hit at present. However, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.