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Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not bother finding a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, add statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor would you highlight that four of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more chances. If you run social media for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of content spins. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Simply ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has long been one of my favourite times to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite 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.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing 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 Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently stated that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the press are by no means the only ones in this. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? 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 players is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. It may be this player taking the hit right now. However, we're all losing something here.