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Imagine this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Do not worry finding a real picture of that miss; context is the enemy. Now, add some goal stats in a big, silly font. Remember the emojis. Share it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. And will you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. You run social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content turns. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times 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 planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? Please an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United to date. He has started on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at his former club: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was an example of this during the international break, when a widely shared infographic handily stated that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the media are not alone in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are now being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.