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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't bother locating a real picture of that miss; background information is your adversary. Now, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember the emojis. Share it across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. Nor would you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more chances. You manage social media for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has started on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a big, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license to rampage but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the press are not alone in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the middle of this, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that every single thing about them is now essentially material, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets 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 filing a missing person’s report on someone 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 storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we scroll through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience in this process.