🔗 Share this article

Picture the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not bother locating a real picture of that miss; background information is the enemy. Now, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share the image across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor will you note that several of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. You run online for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of online material turns. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was a case of this over the international break, when a viral infographic handily stated that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of this, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now basically material, product, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. However, in part 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 coveting players, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are already being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be this player taking the hit right now. However, we're all losing a part of the experience here.