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Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not worry locating a real picture of that miss; context is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you manage social media for a large outlet, raw engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of content turns. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast with Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the title. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred periods to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to read about 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 right now? We need an answer now.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. The guy has started on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? Nor do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw a case of this during the international break, when a widely shared infographic handily informed us that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the press are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the middle of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now basically content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must always be producing the strong emotions. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are now being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on a person who popped 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 itself, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the background while we browse through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt at present. However, everyone is losing something in this process.