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Picture this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Don't bother locating an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, include statistics in a big, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And will you highlight that four of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more chances. You run online for a large outlet, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of content spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Just make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred periods to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need an answer immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to produce permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at United to date. He has been in the lineup 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 analysing? And will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. And in part 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 watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest 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 national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are by no means alone in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously 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 half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience here.