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Picture this: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not worry locating an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, add statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you note that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more chances. You manage social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of content turns. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply make sure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the title. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? Please an answer immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at his former club: a big, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the license to attack but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a viral chart handily stated that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. The striker waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience here.