🔗 Share this article

Imagine this: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, place it with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Don't bother finding an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post it everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you highlight that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more chances. If you manage social media for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content turns. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Simply ensure "weird" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. No one is talking about the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to generate instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And do I propose to replicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Cruel Environment

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his talents: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to miss. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral infographic handily stated that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an environment explicitly geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now essentially material, commodity, public property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a major institution that must always be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are now being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on a person who went to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. The coach bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an whole competition reoriented around talking points and immediate responses, an activity that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit at present. However, we're all losing a part of the experience here.