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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Don't bother locating a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, add statistics in a big, silly font. Remember the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. And would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. You manage social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? We need an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. 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 summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic handily stated that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are by no means alone in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on a person who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps 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 view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our phones, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. It may be this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.