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Picture the following: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not worry locating a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. Nor would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and creates many more chances. You run social media for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content spins. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute interview with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? We need a decision immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce permanent verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? And will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: 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 right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was a case of this over the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently stated that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are not alone in this. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless sluice of irritation 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 every single thing about players is now essentially content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and harshly observed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip 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.