🔗 Share this article

Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry finding an actual photo of that miss; background information is your adversary. Then, include statistics in a big, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor would you note that several of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a large outlet, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The summer market is closed. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on 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. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? Please a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to produce permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the freedom to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this during the international break, when a widely shared infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the press are not alone in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the center of this, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he meets their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped 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 immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we browse through our devices, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.