🔗 Share this article

Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Now, place it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't bother finding an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Then, add statistics in a large, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Share it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally features scores in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And will you note that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you run online for a major brand, raw engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the wheel of content spins. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are still in the game. Right now, all is possibility.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? Please an answer now.

Sesko 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 final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, context-free condemnations and pointless comparisons, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's time at United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the freedom 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 handed down in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the press are not alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the center of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star finished. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, something that occurs in the background while we browse through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is losing something in this process.