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Imagine this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose it with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't bother finding an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a major brand, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just 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 long been one of my preferred periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? We need a decision now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, context-free condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the license to rampage but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" 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 needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this over the international break, when a widely shared chart conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially content, product, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are already being disdained as failures. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he faces their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped 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, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit at present. But in a way, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.