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Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not bother finding an actual photo of him missing; background information is your adversary. Then, include statistics in a large, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that four of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you run social media for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer now.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to generate instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? 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 thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral chart handily informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are by no means alone in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe 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 immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. It may be this player taking the hit right now. However, we're all sacrificing something here.