🔗 Share this article

Picture this: a happy the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not worry locating a real picture of that miss; context is the enemy. Then, include some goal stats in a large, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Post it across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And would you note that four of Højlund'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 manage online for a large outlet, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of online material turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute podcast featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context condemnations and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has started four times in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license to rampage but also the freedom to miss. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the press are by no means alone in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of this, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially content, commodity, public property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be generating the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and harshly 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. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being dismissed as failures. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

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 discussion topics and reaction, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit at present. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.