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Imagine this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not worry finding an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a large, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would 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 far more chances. If you manage social media for a major brand, raw interaction is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content turns. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? Please a decision immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to attack but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this during the international break, when a widely shared chart conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. And of course, the media are by no means alone in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless sluice of irritation 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 players is now basically content, product, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing 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 players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, something that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all sacrificing something here.