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Picture this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; context is your adversary. Then, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. If you run social media for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of content spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the title. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. The guy has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the freedom to attack but also the freedom to miss. 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 watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw a case of this over the international break, when a widely shared chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically operating along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now basically content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are now being dismissed as failures. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something here.