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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't worry finding an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Now, add some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post it everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor will you note that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you manage social media for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of online material spins. The next job is to scan a 44-minute podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Simply make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league right now? We need an answer immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to produce permanent verdicts, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at United so far. The guy has started four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? Nor do I propose to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the license to rampage but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic handily informed us that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the press are by no means the only ones in this. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of this, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most visibly and harshly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on a person who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. The striker waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit at present. But in a way, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience here.