🔗 Share this article

Imagine the following: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry locating an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. And will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a large outlet, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of content turns. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Just ensure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. People will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on 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. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? We need a decision immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the demand to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and memes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, scored two goals, and taken a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a big, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given 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 "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of this, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and harshly observed at this time of year, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being disdained as failures. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing a part of the experience here.