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Picture the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share it everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. You manage social media for a major brand, pure interaction is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content spins. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone 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 most disliked times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? We need an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at United to date. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a big, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared chart handily stated that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of this, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed 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. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand 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 reaction, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. However, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.