Benjamin Sesko: The Latest Casualty of Football's Relentless Cycle of Hot Takes and Internet Jokes

Picture this: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose it with a sad-looking the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't bother locating a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, include some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget some emoticons. Share the image everywhere.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally includes scores in the premier European competition while Sesko isn't playing in continental tournaments? Certainly not. And will you note that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You manage online for a major brand, pure engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just ensure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite times to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, everything is new 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, anything is possible.

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 no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? We need a decision immediately.

Sesko as Patient Zero

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player caught between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to develop. And the imperative to generate permanent verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, context-free criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth analysis of Sesko's time at United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a grand total of 116 touches. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs 10 goals to be a success this season (Neville), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the license to attack but also the freedom to miss. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are handed down in about the time it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw a case of this over the national team pause, when a widely shared chart handily informed us that the player had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. And of course, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Club channels, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an environment deliberately nosed towards controversy.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to ourselves? Do we realize, on some level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the middle of it all, aware on some surreal butterfly-effect level that each aspect about players is now essentially content, product, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must always be generating the big feelings. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of judgment most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the window has closed. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, many of those same 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 wise? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the league and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting 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 losing his hair.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that happens in the background while we browse through our devices, incapable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.