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Picture the following: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; context is your adversary. Then, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share the image across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and generates many more chances. You run online for a large outlet, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of content spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. People will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

However, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need a decision immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to produce instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, context-free criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? And do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf 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 international break, when a viral infographic handily informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an environment explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, product, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.