Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed a sitter. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share the image everywhere.
Will you mention that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you note that several of the Dane's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more chances. You run online for a large outlet, pure engagement is your livelihood, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.
Thus the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Just ensure "strange" and "the player" are paired in the headline. The audience will be furious.
The Season of Promise and Hasty Opinions
The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite times to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.
Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? We need an answer immediately.
Sesko as The Prime Example
In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.
It is not my aim to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. The guy has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? And will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).
A Harsh Reality
Despite this I enjoyed watching him at his former club: a big, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.
We saw an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic handily informed us that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are by no means the only ones in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically operating along the identical rules, an environment explicitly geared for provocation.
The Psychological Toll
Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, knowing on some surreal chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, product, public property to be packaged and exchanged.
And yes, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most clearly and cruelly observed at this season, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as failures. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?
The Bigger Picture
It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star past his prime. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot bald.
Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. It may be this player taking the hit right now. But in a way, we're all sacrificing something here.
