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Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Don't worry locating a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, add some goal stats in a large, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Post it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Of course not. Nor would you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You manage social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? We need an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the license to attack but also the freedom to fail. Partly 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 load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap 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 widely shared infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now basically content, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we scroll through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. However, we're all losing a part of the experience here.