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Picture the following: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Do not worry locating an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember the emojis. Post the image across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the premier European competition 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 Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You manage online for a large outlet, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the title. People will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, 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 planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to produce permanent verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, context-free criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What exactly 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 thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the freedom to attack but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw an example of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared chart conveniently stated that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the media are not the only ones 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 operating along the same principles, an environment explicitly geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the center of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now essentially content, commodity, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. It may be this player taking the hit right now. However, we're all sacrificing something here.