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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it 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 that miss; context is the enemy. Then, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. And will you note that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you manage online for a large outlet, pure interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite periods to observe 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. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, 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, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the freedom to attack but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared chart conveniently informed us that the player had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are now being disdained as failures. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, everyone is losing something here.