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Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, place it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not bother locating a real picture of that miss; background information is your adversary. Then, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Of course not. Nor will you note that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you manage online for a major brand, raw engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content spins. 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 "weird". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? Please a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, context-free criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at United so far. He has started four times 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 evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the freedom to attack but also the freedom to miss. 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 roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment explicitly geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now basically material, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all sacrificing something here.