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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Do not bother locating a real picture of that miss; background information is the enemy. Then, include statistics in a big, comical font. Remember the emojis. Post the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you note that four of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. You manage social media for a large outlet, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material turns. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? Please an answer immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has been in the lineup four times 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 analysing? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the license to rampage 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 "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic handily stated that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are not the only ones in this. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the same principles, an environment explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

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? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now basically content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on a person who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star finished. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience in this process.