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Picture the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Don't bother finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is your adversary. Then, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Post it across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you note that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you run online for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute podcast with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, 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 immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free condemnations and pointless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has started on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap 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 chart handily stated that the player had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not the only ones in this. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now basically material, product, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he meets their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on someone who went to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, something that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.