Sesko: The Latest Victim of Soccer's Unforgiving Cycle of Hot Takes and Memes

Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, place that with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry finding a real picture of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, add some goal stats in a big, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. Nor will you note that four of Højlund's goals were scored versus Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Slovenia and generates many more scoring opportunities. You run online for a major brand, pure interaction is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the cycle of online material turns. Your next task is to sift through a lengthy interview featuring the legendary goalkeeper and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody wants that. Simply ensure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

This Time of Promise and Hasty Opinions

The heart of fall has traditionally one of my favourite times to watch football. Leaves fall, the wind turns, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet patterns are emerging. The stars of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are still in the game. At this precise point, anything is possible.

However, for similar reasons, this period has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on 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 crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? We need an answer now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, non-negotiable forces. The need to delay final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to produce permanent verdicts, a constant stream of opinions and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

It is not my aim to provide a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. The guy has started four times in the Premier League in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? Nor do I propose to replicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two of England's leading pundits argue thrillingly on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: given the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to fail. Partly this is why United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to watch a pre-roll ad, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was an example of this over the national team pause, 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 20 agents. Naturally, the media are by no means the only ones in such behavior. Club channels, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now basically aligned along the same principles, an environment deliberately nosed towards provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What is happening to ourselves? Are we aware, on any level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the center of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that every single thing about them is now essentially material, product, public property to be packaged and traded.

Indeed, partly 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. But also, in part this is a temporary malaise, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, drooling over them. Now, just a few weeks in, a lot of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Should we start to worry about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

A Wider Issue

It feels appropriate that he meets Liverpool on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and yet in their own state of feverish crisis, like submitting a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. Alexander Isak an expensive flop. Arne Slot losing his hair.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we view it, an entire sport repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, something that happens in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and more takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something here.