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Imagine this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, place it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Don't bother locating an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share it everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor will you highlight that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. If you run social media for a major brand, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content turns. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Just make sure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? We need a decision now.

The Player 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 need to withhold definitive judgment, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to generate instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? Nor do I propose to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he requires, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw an example of this during the international break, when a viral chart conveniently stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now basically content, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. However, partly this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Did Arsenal actually need their striker wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that Sesko meets Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the background while we browse through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.