🔗 Share this article

Imagine this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place it with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed an open goal. Do not worry finding a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Then, include some goal stats in a large, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post it everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you highlight that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. You run social media for a major brand, raw interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to scan a 44-minute podcast with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on 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 best player in the league right now? Please a decision now.

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 two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? And do I propose to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching him at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the license to attack but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw an example 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. And of course, the press are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the middle of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player taking the hit at present. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience in this process.