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Imagine this: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Do not worry locating a real picture of that miss; background information is the enemy. Now, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you manage online for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to sift through a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on 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 best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and memes, out-of-context condemnations and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at United so far. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? And do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the freedom to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time 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 going to get.

There was an example of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not the only ones 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 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 endless stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of being a player in the middle of this, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are now being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko faces their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.