By Sir Hardly Anyone.
Have you ever wondered where the people who make up transfer stories get their make believe from? Or indeed how one can tell if one story out of the hundreds that circulate is actually true.
Well, I’m going to show how it is done, with an outrageous example from a blog today. You could do it yourself if you wish, but really I don’t see the point.
The fact is that a lot of the transfer rumours are simply recycled week after week, year after year. Some indeed are recycled several times a year. As a result some of the stories you might see around are actually five years old or more.
Worse, if a player’s move to Arsenal has not been mentioned for a few months it can be reintroduced first as a “this is a player that Arsenal really needs” and “why is Wenger so slow in approaching this player?”, and then when the rest of the rat pack pick up on the tale they publisher claims a first, with everyone compliant by not admitting, “we ran this two years ago”, since that is what they all do.
Here are seven players, all of whom have been listed on one particular recycling site in the last 24 hours, and all of whose transfer stories are old. Some very old.
All of them appear under the headline
Top-7 Players Arsene Wenger Should Target This Summer
which is followed by the question ” who should the Frenchman be scouting in the summer, assuming he stays at the Emirates?”
Now that actually sounds quite good – as if the writer has been out there doing his or her own scouting, looking at talent, and weighing up the options. It suggests a detailed knowledge of European football and the way that the industry works.
But in fact it turns out to be something else – just the most blatant example yet of what the media is now practising every day – filling up their space by recycling the old. It is the ultimate cost-cutting measure for outlets which have cut every other cost and have (as we showed not long ago) single journalists recycling hundreds of stories a week, every week.
So who are these top seven old timers? We find them in
Part 1: The Old Time recycled stories suddenly presented as if they were new.
Oriol Romeu of Southampton starts the roll. His move to Arsenal was first fantasised in the Metro in 2010 when the player was at Barcelona, with the phrase he “could be the latest to make the switch from the Nou Camp to the Emirates Stadium.” He’s been tipped off and on ever since.
Julian Weigl was mentioned as being on the way to Arsenal by HITC and a load of bloggettas that also had this in May 2016. The story was actually rubbished in the Mirror in December 2016.
Tiemoue Bakayoko is the third on the list of ones Wenger should look at if only he had the eyes to see. The Express said he turned us down in March this year.
Naby Keita became a popular figure in the Metro, Mirror, TalkSport, Sky Sports, Bleacher and the Sun in March last year but even they were then recycling the original “the player Arsenal must buy” which originated in January 2016 in Goal.
Leandro Paredes was all the rage in November last year with TalkSport, Bleacher, Metro, and the Mirror and Express all suggesting he was on the way to Arsenal from Roma.
Blaise Matuidi’s story is older. In October 2008, Sky Sports said Arsenal were interested and this was overtly denied by Mr Wenger in 2009, but once again the story was resurrected by Bleacher in February this year. Although the player is now 30.
Grzegorz Krychowiak has also gone around the block in terms of media make believe. The story of him coming to Arsenal was all over the papers and bloggettas in January 2016, May 2016 and again January 2017.
So that is the recycled list. Elsewhere we have the usual, usual rumours…
Part 2: Leaving
Just three tales today.
The Ox
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is being reported as “a summer target for Liverpool”. However while everyone else is talking the deal up one report says Jurgen Klopp won’t pay more than £25m instead of the £35m he supposedly offered before.
Arsenal are “reportedly” prepared to offer a new contract said, by the Mail, to be £65,000 a week. The Star however says that the Ox is the bookies favourite to leave. Everyone else says Arsenal are preparing to open contract talks. But the Star is always a bit weird.
Joel Campbell
Brighton are said to want him. He’s been playing with Sorting Lisbon but is said they don’t want to keep him, allegedly.
Alexis Sanchez or Sergio Aguero or both?
The oldest news on the block is that PSG want to buy everyone. According to a report in The Sun both players are going to PSG at once along with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to team up with Edinson Cavani next season.
Personally having seen what Barcelona did to them, I think PSG would be better off spending the money on a new set of referees willing to do their bidding, but that’s just my view.
Part 3: Not arriving
Virgil van Dijk
“Liverpool ready to pay club-record fee of £50m in signing Manchester City and Arsenal target Virgil van Dijk”. Trouble is no one wants to go to Liverpool now they are the injury capital of England.
Part 4: Arriving
Romelu Lukaku According to the Mirror, Telegraph, Express, Metro…
Romelu Lukaku is certainly on his way to Arsenal. That’s it. That’s the story.
Kylian Mbappe, Mail SkySports, DreamTeam, ESPN, Standard, Metro
And it is said that Arsene Wenger confirmed that Arsenal are…. well “monitoring” Kylian Mbappe of Monaco. That is most certainly true, but this is because Arsenal own StatDNA which has the job of monitoring tens of thousands of players across the world all day every day.
He’s 18, he’s explosive, and is one of the biggest prospects, we are told. He’s scored 22 and assisted 11 goals in the season and Mr Wenger has said that we can’t afford him (allegedly).
Lacazette (latest) Metro, Star, ESPN, Express, Sun, Bleacher, Mirror.
After three interminable years of preliminaries talks have finally opened and a fee of £35m is being discussed, with no one else showing any interest at all – at least in England. But AC Milan and Atletico Madrid are also still willing to buy the oldest story in town. And elsewhere the price is now up to £40m, but that is probably because the pound has just gone down against the Euro while I was writing this.
Florentin Pogba Sun, Mirror, Sky Sports, Sportsmole, Teamtalk, Express, 442, ArsenalNews, Givemesport etc etc.
He is the brother of Manchester United’s Paul and Arsenal are interested according to a report in The Sun. He plays for St Etienne, he is a defender and is needed for the new back three line up which will be used through next season.
Silly, isn’t it? But still worth exposing, in my view, as long as the media keeps making up porkies.
Arsenal v Leicester – every step of the way
Arsenal v Leicester: a shocking home and away comparison, and excellent injury news
Arsenal v Leicester: how exactly do the teams compare with our position last season
One name that can definitely be crossed off of the list now is Allegri, who signed a new deal with Juventus until 2020.
We can also cross off Mbappe who is apparently going to cost over 16 trillion and a pound!
PSG also have one time Arsenal “certainty”, Julian Draxler banging in the goals. It’s going to be a mighty crowded forward line if the media are to be believed.
They play with a back 3 so it’ll be a 3 -2 – 5
Is Lacazette new Kalou.
Every transfer window we get tagged with him…
anthony taylor to be ref for f.a cup final…fantastic…
Exactly where do transfer rumours come from?
Let me count the ways ….
– Idle minds but fertile enough to receive misinformation.
– Unemployable / Dole dependency/ No fiscal concept.
– Inbreeding / Hereditary and herd imbecility .
– No education and unknowledgeable in the functioning of the world.
– Self induced brain damage by too much time spent at the pub or too many bong tokes.
– No friends or fiends to interact with or socialise with.
– Not enough sex so spermatozoa ferment and clog brain cells.
– Reading /misunderstanding newspapers ,blogs and pundits .
– For **** , hatred of the superior AKBs !
Hope I’ve covered most of it .