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Picture this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not bother locating a real picture of that miss; background information is the enemy. Now, include some goal stats in a large, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you note that several of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates many more chances. You manage social media for a major brand, raw interaction is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. People will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer now.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free condemnations and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a viral chart handily stated that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are by no means the only ones in this. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of this, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now essentially content, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be producing the big feelings. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, 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, a lot of those very players are now being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit at present. However, we're all losing a part of the experience here.