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Imagine this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Don't worry finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, add statistics in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you highlight that four of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you run social media for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content turns. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Simply ensure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the title. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn 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 reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? We need a decision now.

The Player 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, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, context-free criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide 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 highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to attack but also the freedom to fail. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" 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 time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw a case of this during the international break, when a viral infographic handily stated that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the press are not the only ones in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of this, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that every single thing about them is now essentially 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 generating the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, 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? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.