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Picture the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't bother finding a real picture of that miss; background information is your adversary. Then, include statistics in a big, comical font. Remember the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you note that four of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more chances. You run online for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of content turns. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite periods to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context condemnations and pointless contrasts, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at United to date. He has started four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? And do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the license to attack but also the leeway to miss. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw a case of this during the international break, when a widely shared infographic handily stated that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the media are by no means alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the same principles, an environment explicitly geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of this, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now basically content, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all sacrificing something in this process.