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Picture the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Don't worry locating a real picture of that miss; context is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a large, silly font. Remember the emojis. Share it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you highlight that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more chances. You run social media for a large outlet, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the title. People will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? We need a decision 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 opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? And do I propose to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the freedom to attack but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart handily informed us that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the media are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment explicitly geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and harshly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on someone who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that occurs in the background while we scroll through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all losing something in this process.