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Picture this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry locating a real picture of him missing; context is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a large, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And will you note that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. If you run social media for a major brand, raw interaction is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of content turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just make sure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has long 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 resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? We need an answer now.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, context-free criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the license to attack 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 summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this over the international break, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the press are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of this, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now essentially content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating 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 Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit right now. However, we're all sacrificing something in this process.