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Picture this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, place that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not worry finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is your adversary. Then, include some goal stats in a large, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. And would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and generates far more chances. You run social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn 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. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? Please an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. 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 pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic handily informed us that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. And of course, the media are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now essentially content, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and harshly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that happens in the background while we browse through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of takes and more takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit right now. However, we're all losing something here.