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Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place it 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 that miss; context is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor would you note that several of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of online material turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Simply make sure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the title. People will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long 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. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz 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 The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. He has started on four occasions in the top flight 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 duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to miss. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest 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 widest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral infographic handily stated that the player had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the press are not alone in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an environment explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of being a player in the center of this, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now basically material, product, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit at present. But in a way, we're all sacrificing something here.