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Picture the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place it with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not bother finding an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a large, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Share the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. If you manage social media for a large outlet, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of content turns. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to generate instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free condemnations and pointless contrasts, a square that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. He has started four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a big, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the license to attack but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a viral chart handily stated that the player had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are by no means the only ones in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate 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 material, product, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, incapable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.