🔗 Share this article

Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Don't bother finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is your adversary. Then, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember the emojis. Post the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and generates far more chances. You run online for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. People will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? Please an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a powerful, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why 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 load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a widely shared chart conveniently stated that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now basically material, product, public property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must always be producing the strong emotions. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being dismissed as failures. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a a report on a person who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps 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 watch it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the background while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and more takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit at present. But in a way, we're all sacrificing something here.