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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not bother finding a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, include statistics in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor would you note that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you run online for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

However, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. 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 the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: 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.

We saw a case of this over the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of this, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now basically material, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must constantly be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, incapable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. However, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.