Sesko: Another Victim of Soccer's Relentless Cycle of Hot Takes and Internet Jokes

Imagine the following: a smiling Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko in a Manchester United kit, appearing like he's missed a sitter. Don't bother locating an actual photo of him missing; context is your adversary. Then, add statistics in a big, comical font. Remember some emoticons. Post the image across all platforms.

Will you mention that Højlund's tally features strikes in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in continental tournaments? Certainly not. Nor will you note that several of Højlund's goals came against weaker national sides, or that his national team is much stronger to Slovenia and generates far more scoring opportunities. You run social media for a major brand, pure interaction is what pays the bills, United are the biggest draw, and nuance is the thing to avoid.

Thus the wheel of online material turns. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview with the legendary goalkeeper and find the part where he calls the acquisition of Sesko "strange". There's a bit, where Schmeichel qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... well, cut that. No one needs that. Just make sure "strange" and "Sesko" are paired 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 times to watch football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, squads and strategies are newly formed, all is novel and yet everything is beginning to form. Key players of the coming months are staking their claims. The summer market is shut. No one is mentioning the quadruple yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

Yet, for similar 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. The City winger is resurgent. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the best player in the league at this moment? Please an answer now.

Sesko as Patient Zero

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like the archetype in this context, a player caught between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The imperative to withhold final conclusions, allowing layers of technical texture and tactical sophistication to mature. And the demand to generate permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of takes and jokes, out-of-context criticisms and meaningless comparisons, a square that can never truly be circled.

It is not my aim to offer a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at United so far. He has started on four occasions in the Premier League in a wildly inconsistent team, found the net twice, and taken a mere of 116 contacts with the ball. What exactly are we analysing? Nor do I propose to duplicate the pundits' notable debate "The Sesko Debate", in which two of England's leading pundits duel passionately on a podcast over whether he needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this season (one pundit), or whether it is more like 12 or 13 (the other).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I loved watching Sesko at Leipzig: a big, screeching sports car of a striker, playing in a team pitched perfectly to his abilities: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the leeway to miss. And in part this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "brutal verdicts" are summarily issued in roughly the duration it takes to watch a short advertisement, the club with the widest and most pitiless gulf between the time and air he needs, and the opportunity he is going to get.

There was a case of this during the international break, when a widely shared infographic handily informed us that the player had been judged – by a wide margin – the poorest acquisition of the recent market by a survey of 20 agents. And of course, the press are not alone in this. Club channels, influencers, unidentified profiles with a suspiciously high number of pornbot followers: everybody with skin in the game is now essentially aligned along the same principles, an environment explicitly geared for provocation.

The Psychological Toll

Endless scrolling and tapping. What is happening to us? Are we aware, on any level, what this infinite stream of irritation is doing to our brains? Quite apart from the inherent strangeness of being a player in the center of it all, knowing on a bizarre butterfly-effect level that every single thing about them is now basically content, product, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, in part this is because United are United, the entity that continues to feed the cycle, a major institution that must always be producing 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. All summer long we have been coveting footballers, praising them, drooling over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those very players are already being dismissed as broken goods. Is it time to be concerned about a new signing? Did Arsenal actually need their striker necessary? What was the point of another expensive buy?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that he meets their rivals on the weekend: a team at once 13 months unbeaten at home in the Premier League and somehow in their own state of perceived turmoil, like filing a missing person’s report on someone who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah past his prime. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Perhaps we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to influence the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and immediate responses, something that happens in the background while we scroll through our devices, unable to detach from the constant flow of opinions and further hot takes. Perhaps Sesko taking the hit right now. However, everyone is losing a part of the experience here.