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Picture this: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't worry locating an actual photo of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share the image across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. Nor will you note that several of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you run social media for a major brand, raw engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply ensure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred periods to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz 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 context, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely 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 Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the license to rampage but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why Manchester 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 watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared chart handily informed us that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the media are not alone in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now essentially content, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being disdained as failures. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces their rivals on Sunday: 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 submitting a a report on a person who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to detach from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt at present. However, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.