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Imagine the following: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not worry locating a real picture of that miss; background information is the enemy. Then, include statistics in a large, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share the image across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. Nor will you note that four of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more chances. You manage social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute interview with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one wants that. Just make sure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the title. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce permanent verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, context-free criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. He has started on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to attack but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was an example of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared chart conveniently stated that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the press are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the center of this, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and cruelly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the background while we scroll through our devices, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, we're all losing something in this process.