🔗 Share this article

Picture this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry finding a real picture of that miss; context is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Of course not. Nor will you note that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. You manage social media for a large outlet, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of content turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where he prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one needs that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, 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 right now? Please a decision immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to produce permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? And do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a powerful, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license to attack but also the freedom to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: 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 ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a viral infographic handily informed us that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not alone in such behavior. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of this, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are now being disdained as failures. Is it time to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, incapable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience here.