Imagine this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, include some goal stats in a big, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Post the image across all platforms.
Will you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. Nor would you note that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and creates many more chances. You manage social media for a large outlet, raw interaction is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.
So the wheel of content spins. The next job is to scan a lengthy interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.
The Season of Potential and Hasty Opinions
The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.
Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.
Sesko as The Prime Example
In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.
I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. The guy has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel passionately 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 (the other).
A Cruel Environment
For all this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a big, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to attack but also the leeway to fail. And in part this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.
There was an example of this over the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not alone in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the identical rules, an ecosystem deliberately geared for controversy.
The Psychological Toll
Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of playing in the center of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now basically content, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.
Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the strong emotions. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting players, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, a lot of those same players are now being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?
The Bigger Picture
It seems fitting that he meets their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the shops half an hour ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. 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 reoriented around talking points and reaction, something that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit at present. However, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.
