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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Don't worry finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share it everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you note that several of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You manage online for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of online material spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite periods to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? Please a decision immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to produce instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has started on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? Nor do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful 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 Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the freedom to attack but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared chart conveniently stated that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the media are by no means the only ones in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be producing the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being dismissed as failures. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that occurs in the background while we browse through our devices, unable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. However, we're all losing a part of the experience here.