Picture this: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he just missed an open goal. Do not worry locating a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Now, include statistics in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Post the image across all platforms.
Will you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more chances. You manage social media for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.
So the cycle of content spins. Your next task is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". Just before, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. Nobody needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.
The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite periods to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, 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 shut. Nobody is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.
Yet, for similar reasons, this period has long been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need an answer immediately.
And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to delay definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, context-free criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be circled.
It is not my aim to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What exactly are we evaluating? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (the other).
Despite this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his abilities: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.
There was a case of this over the international break, when a viral chart conveniently informed us that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the media are not alone in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of fake followers: everybody with a vested interest is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.
Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of this, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now basically material, product, public property to be packaged and exchanged.
Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a big club that must always be generating the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those very players are already being dismissed as failures. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?
It feels appropriate that he faces Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. The coach bald.
Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to influence the way we watch it, an whole competition repivoted around talking points and reaction, something that occurs in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, incapable to detach from the constant flow of takes and more takes. It may be Sesko bearing the brunt at present. But in a way, we're all losing a part of the experience here.
Elara is a seasoned gaming journalist with a passion for slot mechanics and player strategies.
