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Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't bother locating an actual photo of that miss; context is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you note that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. You manage online for a large outlet, raw interaction is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? We need a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. The guy has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? And do I propose to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license to rampage but also the leeway to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this over the international break, when a viral infographic handily informed us that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, product, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must always be producing the strong emotions. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the background while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, we're all sacrificing something in this process.