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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry locating a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more chances. You manage online for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. People will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? We need an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to generate instant verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and memes, out-of-context condemnations and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the freedom to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest 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 ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this during the international break, when a viral infographic handily stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now basically operating along the same principles, an environment explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of being a player in the middle of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically content, commodity, public property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment 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, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being disdained as failures. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and immediate responses, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit at present. But in a way, we're all sacrificing something here.