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Picture this: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not worry finding an actual photo of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, add statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you note that several of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and generates far more chances. You manage social media for a major brand, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of content turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite periods to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? We need an answer immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to produce instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, context-free condemnations and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to attack but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who popped to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot 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 watch it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be this player taking the hit at present. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.