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Picture this: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not bother finding an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you manage social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Simply make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, 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. For while 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 best player in the league right now? We need an answer immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to generate permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has started 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 precisely are we evaluating? 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 duel passionately on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving 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 ruthless gap between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently informed us that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment explicitly geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on some 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 some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now essentially content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most visibly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the background while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, we're all losing something in this process.