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Picture the following: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't worry locating an actual photo of that miss; context is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more chances. You manage social media for a large outlet, raw interaction is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of content turns. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer now.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has started on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a big, fast 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. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the press are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of this, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now basically content, commodity, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must always be producing the big feelings. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as failures. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we scroll through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.