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Imagine this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Do not worry finding a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. And will you note that four of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. You manage social media for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of online material spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite times to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics 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 closed. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to produce instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the license to rampage but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest 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 pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this over 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 recent market by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in this. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must constantly be generating the big feelings. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting players, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as failures. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star finished. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all sacrificing something here.