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

Picture this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, juxtapose that with a dejected the Slovenian forward sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Do not bother finding an actual photo of him missing; context is the enemy. Now, include some goal stats in a large, comical font. Remember the emojis. Post it across all platforms.

Would you mention that Højlund's tally includes strikes in the premier European competition while his counterpart isn't playing in continental tournaments? Of course not. Nor will you highlight that several of Højlund's goals came against Belarus and Greece, or that Denmark is far superior to Sesko's Slovenia and creates far more chances. If you run social media for a major brand, raw interaction is your livelihood, Manchester United are the prime target, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of content spins. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and extract the part where he describes the signing of Sesko "weird". There's a bit, where he prefaces his remarks by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. Nobody wants that. Just make sure "weird" and "the player" appear together in the headline. People will be outraged.

This Time of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my favourite periods to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies 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 closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. Everyone are in contention. At this precise point, all is possibility.

However, for similar reasons, this period has long 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 major letdown. Is Antoine Semenyo the top performer in the league right now? We need an answer immediately.

Sesko as The Prime Example

In many ways, Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's two countervailing, non-negotiable forces. The need to withhold final conclusions, to let layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to produce instant verdicts, a constant stream of takes and memes, out-of-context criticisms and pointless comparisons, a square that can never truly be solved.

I do not propose to offer a in-depth evaluation of Sesko's stint at United to date. The guy has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What precisely are we analysing? Nor will I attempt to duplicate the pundits' seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts argue passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be a success this year (one pundit), or whether it's really more like twelve or thirteen (the other).

A Harsh Reality

For all this I loved watching him at his former club: a big, fast racing car of a forward, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: given the license to attack but also the freedom to fail. And in part 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 roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most pitiless gap between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this during the international break, when a viral infographic conveniently informed us that the player had been deemed – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the summer transfer window by a poll of 20 agents. Naturally, the press are not the only ones in this. Team social media, influencers, unidentified profiles with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the identical rules, an ecosystem explicitly geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Endless scrolling and tapping. What are we doing to us? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless stream of aggravation is doing to our minds? Separate from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the middle of it all, aware on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about them is now basically material, commodity, public property to be packaged and traded.

And yes, partly this is because United are United, the corpse that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must constantly be generating the big feelings. But also, in part this is a seasonal affliction, a swing of judgment most visibly and cruelly glimpsed at this season, roughly four weeks after the transfer market shut. Throughout the summer we have been desiring footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Yet, just a few weeks in, a lot of those very players are already being disdained as failures. Should we start to worry about Jamie Gittens? Was Arsenal's purchase of their striker necessary? What was the point of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces their rivals on the weekend: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at home in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like filing a missing person’s report on a person who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Too open. Their star finished. Alexander Isak waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have failed to understand the way the storyline of football has begun to supplant football itself, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition reoriented around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the backdrop while we scroll through our phones, unable to disconnect from the saline drip of opinions and further hot takes. It may be this player bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, everyone is sacrificing something in this process.