🔗 Share this article

Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; context is your adversary. Then, include statistics in a big, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would you note that several of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you manage online for a large outlet, pure interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Simply make sure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, 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 summer market is closed. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving 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 ruthless gulf between the patience and space 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 informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the press are by no means the only ones in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now basically content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must constantly be generating the big feelings. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who went to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline 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 immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.