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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Do not worry locating an actual photo of him missing; context is your adversary. Now, include statistics in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor will you highlight that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. If you run social media for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content turns. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to attack 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 "harsh judgments" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not alone in this. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on a person who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, something that happens in the background while we browse through our devices, incapable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, we're all sacrificing something here.