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Picture this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Do not bother locating a real picture of that miss; background information is your adversary. Now, add statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you note that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more chances. You run 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 scan a lengthy podcast with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and memes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United to date. 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 exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the license to attack but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw a case of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the press are not the only ones in this. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? 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 essentially material, commodity, public property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is losing something in this process.