🔗 Share this article

Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Don't bother locating a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you note that four of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. You manage online for a major brand, raw engagement is your livelihood, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally 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. The stars of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? We need an answer immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to produce instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

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: given the freedom to attack but also the leeway to miss. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a widely shared chart handily stated that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the middle of it all, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly observed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on a person who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.