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Picture the following: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't worry locating an actual photo of him missing; context is your adversary. Now, add some goal stats in a big, silly font. Remember the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. And would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. If you run social media for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content turns. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need an answer immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. The guy has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast racing 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 "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw a case of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. And of course, the media are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now basically content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being disdained 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?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star finished. The striker waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, something that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.