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Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Do not bother locating an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, add some goal stats in a large, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share it everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. You run online for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to sift through a lengthy interview with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars 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.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? We need an answer immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to produce instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has started four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a powerful, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license to attack but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic conveniently stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the same principles, an environment explicitly geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of it all, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically material, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are now being disdained as failures. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, incapable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience in this process.