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Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, place it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Do not bother finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would you note that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you manage online for a major brand, raw interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of content spins. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy interview with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? We need a decision now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? And do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at Leipzig: 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 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 summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was an example of this during the international break, when a widely shared infographic conveniently informed us that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. And of course, the media are not alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly 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 provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now essentially material, product, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and more takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience in this process.