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Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a big, comical font. Remember the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you manage social media for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute interview with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? And do I propose to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the freedom to attack but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: 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 patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this over the international break, when a viral infographic handily informed us that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are by no means alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must always be producing the strong emotions. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and cruelly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run 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 went to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, incapable to detach from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit at present. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience here.