🔗 Share this article

Imagine the following: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed an open goal. Don't worry locating an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a big, silly font. Remember some emoticons. Post it across all platforms.

Will you point out that Højlund's goal count includes strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor would you note that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. You run online for a large outlet, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the prime target, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of content spins. Your next task is to scan a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "strange". Just before, where he qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. Nobody wants that. Simply make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the title. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to watch football. Leaves fall, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The summer market is closed. Nobody is talking about the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for many of the same reasons, this period has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? We need an answer now.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce instant definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has started on four occasions 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 exactly are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite 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 freedom to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw a case of this during the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently stated that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the media are not alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of this, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a big club that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting players, eulogising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are now being disdained as broken goods. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Mohamed Salah finished. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport reoriented around talking points and immediate responses, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all losing something in this process.