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Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Do not bother finding an actual photo of him missing; context is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Share it across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you note that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and generates many more chances. You manage online for a major brand, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute interview with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Just ensure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on 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 best player in the league at this moment? We need an answer immediately.

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 two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. He has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the freedom to attack but also the freedom to miss. 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 summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a viral chart conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an environment explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now basically content, product, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most visibly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are now being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on a person who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. However, we're all losing something in this process.