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Picture the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Do not worry finding an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally features scores in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. And will you highlight that four of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You manage online for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of online material turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? Please an answer immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, context-free condemnations and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has been in the lineup 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 evaluating? And do I propose to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the license to attack but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest 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 likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently informed us that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, 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, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum 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 coveting players, praising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he meets their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on someone who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, incapable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit right now. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.