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Picture this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Do not bother finding a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, add some goal stats in a large, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You run online for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of online material spins. The next job is to sift through a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred 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 planting their flags. The summer market is closed. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. 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. For while nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. He has started four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the freedom to attack but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the media are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of it all, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star finished. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit right now. However, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience here.