🔗 Share this article

Imagine the following: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't bother locating a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Remember the emojis. Share it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates many more chances. If you run online for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of online material spins. The next job is to scan a 44-minute podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred 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 coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? Please an answer immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a big, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to miss. 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 about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw a case of this over the international break, when a widely shared chart conveniently stated that the player had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not alone in this. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now basically material, commodity, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.