🔗 Share this article

Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, place that with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not bother finding a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, add statistics in a big, comical font. Remember the emojis. Share it across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. And would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you manage social media for a large outlet, raw interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite times to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, 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 an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United to date. He has started four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, 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 an example of this during the international break, when a widely shared chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the middle of this, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on a person who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.