Sesko: The Latest Casualty of Football's Relentless Cycle of Hot Takes and Memes

Picture this: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Next, juxtapose it with a sad-looking Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Do not bother locating an actual photo of him missing; background information is the enemy. Then, add statistics in a large, comical font. Don't forget the emojis. Share it across all platforms.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count includes scores in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in Europe? Certainly not. And would you note that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. You manage social media for a major brand, raw engagement is what pays the bills, Manchester United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the cycle of content spins. Your next task is to sift through a 44-minute interview with Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he describes the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "Nothing negative to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, remove that part. No one wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the title. People will be furious.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

Mid-autumn has traditionally one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the season ahead are staking their claims. The transfer window is shut. No one is mentioning the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has also been one of my most disliked times to consume news on football. For while no outcomes are decided, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. Florian Wirtz has been a crushing disappointment. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league at this moment? Please an answer immediately.

The Player as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to withhold definitive judgment, to let technical development and tactical sophistication to mature. And the imperative to generate instant verdicts, a conveyor belt of opinions and memes, out-of-context condemnations and meaningless contrasts, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to provide a substantive analysis of Sesko's stint at Manchester United so far. He has started four times in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, found the net twice, and had a grand total of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we evaluating? And do I propose to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue thrillingly on a popular show over whether he needs 10 goals to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Cruel Environment

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast racing car of a striker, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the license 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 "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 time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is going to get.

We saw a case of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic handily informed us that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the summer transfer window by a survey of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in such behavior. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially operating along the same principles, an ecosystem deliberately geared for controversy.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to us? Do we realize, on any level, what this infinite stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the essential weirdness of being a player in the middle of it all, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now essentially content, product, open-source property to be repackaged and exchanged.

And yes, in part this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the narrative, a major institution that must constantly be producing the strong emotions. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of judgment most visibly and harshly observed at this season, about a month after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, praising them, salivating over them. Yet, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are now being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres necessary? What was the purpose of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and somehow in their own state of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who went to the shops 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star past his prime. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has begun to supplant football itself, to inflect the way we watch it, an entire sport repivoted around talking points and reaction, an activity that occurs in the background while we browse through our phones, unable to disconnect from the constant flow of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko bearing the brunt right now. However, we're all losing a part of the experience in this process.