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Picture the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, place that with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed an open goal. Do not bother locating an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you highlight that several of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. You run online for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of content turns. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Just make sure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? We need a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to generate instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and pointless contrasts, a square that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor 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 year (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the license to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: 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 gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this over the international break, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s 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 bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is sacrificing something here.