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Picture this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not bother finding a real picture of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Post the image everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. Nor would you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and creates many more chances. You manage social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of online material spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. People will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given 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 roughly the duration it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this over the international break, when a widely shared infographic conveniently stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment explicitly nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about them is now basically material, commodity, public property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are now being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he faces their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience in this process.