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Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not worry locating a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Remember the emojis. Share the image across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you note that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of content spins. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite times to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? Please a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, 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 generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at United so far. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to fail. 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 summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was a case of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared chart handily informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the press are not alone in this. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting players, praising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being dismissed as failures. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on someone who popped to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. 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 entire sport reoriented around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit right now. However, we're all losing something in this process.