Sesko: The Latest Victim of Soccer's Relentless Cycle of Opinions and Internet Jokes

Picture this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund wearing Napoli's colors. Next, juxtapose that with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, appearing like he's missed an open goal. Do not bother locating a real picture of him missing; background information is your adversary. Now, add statistics in a big, comical font. Remember the emojis. Post the image everywhere.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally includes scores in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Of course not. Nor would you note that four of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is far superior to Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. You manage social media for a large outlet, pure interaction is what pays the bills, United are the prime target, and nuance is your sworn enemy.

So the cycle of content turns. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute podcast featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, cut that. Nobody needs that. Just make sure "weird" and "Sesko" are paired in the title. The audience will be furious.

The Season of Promise and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my preferred periods to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are still fresh, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The transfer window is closed. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies 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 long been one of my most disliked times to read about football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the best player in the league right now? We need a decision now.

The Player as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to develop. And the demand to generate instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of takes and jokes, context-free condemnations and pointless comparisons, a square that can not truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's time at United to date. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two famous analysts duel thrillingly on a podcast over whether Sesko needs 10 goals to be a success this year (Neville), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at Leipzig: a powerful, screeching racing car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the freedom to attack but also the leeway to miss. Partly 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 roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most ruthless gulf between the patience and space he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was an example of this during the national team pause, when a viral infographic conveniently stated that Sesko had been deemed – decisively – the worst signing of the recent market by a survey of football representatives. And of course, the press are not the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite sluice of irritation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about players is now essentially content, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the corpse that keeps nourishing the narrative, a big club that must always be producing the strong emotions. However, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and cruelly observed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are now being dismissed as failures. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker wise? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It feels appropriate that Sesko faces Liverpool on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own situation of perceived turmoil, like submitting a a report on someone who went to the store half an hour ago. Defensively suspect. Their star finished. The striker an expensive flop. The coach losing his hair.

Perhaps we have failed to understand the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, something that happens in the backdrop while we browse through our devices, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. But in a way, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.