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Picture this: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't bother locating an actual photo of that miss; context is the enemy. Then, include some goal stats in a large, comical font. Remember the emojis. Share the image across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more chances. You manage online for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of online material spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? Please a decision now.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at United so far. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "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 season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to attack but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this during the international break, when a viral chart conveniently stated that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in this. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of this, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially content, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most visibly and cruelly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are now being dismissed as failures. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all sacrificing something here.