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Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, place it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't bother finding a real picture of that miss; context is the enemy. Now, include some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you highlight that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more chances. If you run social media for a major brand, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of content spins. The next job is to sift through a lengthy interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Simply ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? We need a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to produce instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, context-free condemnations and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? Nor do I propose to replicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license to rampage but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared chart handily 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. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, aware on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. However, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most visibly and harshly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are already being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Perhaps 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 whole competition repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the background while we browse through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something here.