🔗 Share this article

Imagine the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place it with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not worry locating a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Remember the emojis. Share it across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more chances. You manage social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. People will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. 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 also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need a decision immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context condemnations and pointless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. He has started on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? Nor do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a big, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the license to attack but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw a case of this over the international break, when a widely shared infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been deemed – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically operating along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness 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 content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on someone who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt at present. However, we're all sacrificing something here.