Benjamin Sesko: The Latest Victim of Football's Unforgiving Conveyor Belt of Hot Takes and Internet Jokes

Imagine the following: a smiling the Danish striker wearing Napoli's colors. Now, juxtapose it with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, appearing like he just missed a sitter. Do not bother locating an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, add statistics in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Share the image everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the premier European competition while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Of course not. And would you note that several of Højlund's goals were scored versus weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. If you manage online for a major brand, pure interaction is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and context is your sworn enemy.

Thus the cycle of online material spins. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where Schmeichel prefaces his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. No one needs that. Simply make sure "strange" and "Sesko" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Hasty Opinions

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my favourite periods to observe football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. The stars of the coming months are planting their flags. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my least favourite times to read about football. Because although nothing has yet been settled, something must always be getting settled. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a major letdown. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? We need an answer immediately.

The Player as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and jokes, context-free criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive analysis of Sesko's time at United so far. The guy has been in the lineup four times in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching him at his former club: a big, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the freedom to attack but also the leeway to fail. 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 summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

There was an example of this over the international break, when a widely shared chart conveniently informed us that Sesko had been judged – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. Naturally, the media are not the only ones in this. Team social media, online personalities, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this infinite sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, knowing on some surreal butterfly-effect level that every single thing about players is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, partly this is a temporary malaise, a swing of opinion most visibly and harshly observed at this time of year, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Now, just a few weeks in, many of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and yet in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like filing a a report on a person who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. The striker an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps 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 talking points and immediate responses, an activity that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, incapable to detach from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. However, everyone is sacrificing something here.