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Picture this: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry locating a real picture of that miss; background information is the enemy. Now, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor will you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you run online for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content spins. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes 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, remove that part. No one wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. People will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish 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 The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a big, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the license to rampage but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this over the international break, when a widely shared infographic handily stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the press are by no means alone in this. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now basically operating along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience here.