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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, include statistics in a large, comical font. Remember the emojis. Share it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. You manage social media for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of content spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? We need a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. He has started on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the freedom to attack but also the leeway 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 handed down in roughly the duration it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was 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 survey of 20 agents. And of course, the press are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, something that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, we're all sacrificing something here.