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Picture the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Do not worry locating a real picture of that miss; background information is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Share the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You run online for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of content turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? We need a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to produce instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? Nor do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the media are not the only ones in this. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now basically content, commodity, public property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly observed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are now being disdained as failures. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star finished. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that occurs in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, everyone is losing something in this process.