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Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't bother finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally features scores in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. And will you note that four of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates many more chances. If you run online for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material turns. The next job is to scan a lengthy podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite 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 The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to produce permanent verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at 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 exactly are we analysing? And will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing 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 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 short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared chart conveniently informed us that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now essentially content, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are now being dismissed as failures. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, something that happens in the background while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. However, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.