Sesko: Another Victim of Soccer's Unforgiving Conveyor Belt of Opinions and Memes

Imagine the following: a happy the Danish striker in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose it with a dejected the Slovenian forward in a Manchester United kit, looking as if he just missed a sitter. Don't worry locating an actual photo of him missing; background information is your adversary. Then, include some goal stats in a big, comical font. Remember the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally includes scores in the Champions League while his counterpart does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. And will you note that several of the Dane's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and creates far more scoring opportunities. If you run social media for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material turns. The next job is to sift through a lengthy podcast with the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his remarks by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one needs that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. The audience will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. Nobody is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for many of the same reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. Because although no outcomes are decided, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league at this moment? Please a decision immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this respect, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold definitive judgment, to let technical development and strategic understanding to develop. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can never truly be circled.

I do not propose to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at United so far. He 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 analysing? And will I attempt to replicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a popular show over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, screeching racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to rampage but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be right now: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most pitiless gap between the patience and space he needs, and the time and air he is going to get.

We saw a case of this during the international break, when a widely shared infographic handily informed us that the player had been judged – decisively – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are by no means alone in this. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this endless sluice of irritation is doing to our minds? Quite apart from the essential weirdness of playing in the center of it all, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that each aspect about them is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be generating the strong emotions. However, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most clearly and cruelly glimpsed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. All summer long we have been desiring players, praising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are now being disdained as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously on a long unbeaten run at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on someone who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star finished. The striker an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has started to replace football itself, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, incapable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all losing something in this process.