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Picture this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; context is your adversary. Now, include statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. Nor would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition 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 make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, this period has long 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 crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. He has started four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom 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 handed down in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently stated that the player had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now basically material, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on a person who popped to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that occurs in the background while we scroll through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit at present. However, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.