🔗 Share this article

Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Don't bother locating an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor would you note that several of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more chances. You run social media for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently stated that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the press are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of this, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically content, product, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are already being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on someone who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Perhaps 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 entire sport reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, incapable to detach from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience here.