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Picture the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't worry finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is your adversary. Then, add statistics in a large, comical font. Remember the emojis. Post it everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. Nor would you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. If you manage social media for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content turns. The next job is to scan a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. People will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? We need an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this during the international break, when a widely shared infographic conveniently 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 not the only ones in this. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically operating along the identical rules, an environment deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now essentially content, product, public property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience here.