Sesko: Another Casualty of Soccer's Relentless Conveyor Belt of Opinions and Memes

Picture the following: a smiling the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he's missed an open goal. Do not bother finding an actual photo of that miss; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a large, comical font. Remember the emojis. Share it everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's goal count features scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you note that four of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates many more chances. You run social media for a major brand, raw interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

Thus the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to sift through a 44-minute interview with the legendary goalkeeper and extract 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"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "the player" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred periods to observe football. Leaves fall, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is shut. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to read about football. For while no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league right now? We need a decision now.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to generate permanent definitive judgment, a conveyor belt of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has started four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 touches. What exactly are we analysing? And will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (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 ideally suited to his talents: given the license to rampage but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why United feels like the most unforgiving place he could possibly be right now: a place where "harsh judgments" are handed down in roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he requires, and the time and air he is likely to receive.

We saw a case of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared infographic conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not alone in this. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of fake followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an environment explicitly geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of this, aware on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now basically content, commodity, public property to be repackaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of opinion most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, a lot of those very players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It seems fitting that he faces their rivals on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the store half an hour ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. The striker an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that happens in the background while we scroll through our phones, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. It may be Sesko taking the hit right now. However, everyone is losing something here.