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Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't bother finding an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Then, include statistics in a big, comical font. Remember the emojis. Share it everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And would you highlight that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you manage online for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of content turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply make sure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? Please a decision now.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

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: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to fail. And in part this is why Manchester 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 watch 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 national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the press are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must constantly be producing the big feelings. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most visibly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting players, 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 Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the background while we scroll through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.