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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Don't worry locating a real picture of that miss; background information is your adversary. Now, include statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. Nor would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you manage online for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of content turns. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, 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 resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? Please a decision immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (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, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why 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 watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a viral chart handily stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – 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 fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, 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 it all, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now essentially content, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are now being dismissed as failures. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker 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 the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, something that occurs in the background while we browse through our devices, incapable to detach from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all losing a part of the experience here.