🔗 Share this article

Picture the following: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry locating a real picture of that miss; context is the enemy. Now, add some goal stats in a big, comical font. Remember the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Will you point out that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. And will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates far more chances. If you manage social media for a large outlet, pure engagement is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel prefaces his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics 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 closed. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? We need an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, context-free criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has been in the lineup four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? And do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I enjoyed watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, fast sports 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 Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral chart conveniently stated that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in this. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now basically content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and harshly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 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 a person who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the background while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, everyone is losing something in this process.