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Imagine the following: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not bother finding an actual photo of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, include statistics in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Share it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that four of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you run social media for a large outlet, pure interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of online material turns. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? We need an answer now.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to generate instant verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has started four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success 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, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the license to attack but also the leeway to miss. And in part 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 load a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a viral chart handily informed us that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the media are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of this, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now basically content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps 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 repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens 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. But in a way, we're all losing something in this process.