Journalists panic as transfer rumour could actually turn out to be true

By Sir Hardly Anyone

Once upon a time football rumours, which Untold has followed with a combination of absolute disdain and occasional amusement, were out on their own.  Wild and whacky with no sense of Earthly reality, the stories were created by drunken scribblers meandering around the Toppled Bollard public house telling shouting out names of players and clubs at random and then joining them together into transfer tales that never happen.

But rival activities elsewhere have now made even the wildest of these stories appear to be placid, simplistic and in effect dull and boring overtaken as they are by such things as the “Tumpette notion”.  A Trumpette is a person who believes everything the President says without questioning its relationship with reality, and their sacred and deep held belief is that by saying things the stories become true.  A Trumpette notion is anything the President says which is then repeated as true.

Like the idea that the Mexicans will pay for the wall between the US and Mexico.

Also available as an alternative to the Trumpette notion is the “Dealless Leave” concept that you can say you are doing anything no matter how bizarre it is and no one will question its relation to sanity.  Thus here one can spend millions of pounds of public money supporting a shipping company that has no ships, no staff and no experience in shipping, and which has copied its terms of business from a local takeaway restaurant but which the government says which will transport goods from Europe into an English harbour which is not deep enough to receive the ships.

(My own English county of Rutland, where I hold court, has followed this line by declaring independence from the UK without a deal, and hired a rowing boat to ferry goods across Rutland Water – a resevoir which occupies about 110% of the landmass of the county.)

The arrival of these two approaches have been seen in the world of football transfers as dire threats, as you might imagine.  Until now football transfer stories have been out there on their own as tales of untrue fantasy – but finding themselves now totally out done by both Trumpettes and Dealless Leave tales the creators of the football gibberish are desperately trying to up their game.

So we have reports that Tony Adams, now a big name in English rugby administration, says that Eddie must leave Arsenal, and Thisisfutbol have it that Eddie is off to Aston Villa.

Upping the game further the disgraceful Transfer Tavern go with “Clearly, this dreadful Arsenal duo should follow Elneny out ASAP”.  The Duo is question is Mustafi and Cech and the notion is that somehow getting rid of all three players should be the heart of Arsenal’s transfer policy this month.

Now of course when we enter the world of mindless gibberish we cannot but help think of the notorious Football London although some of their team who fell into a coma (or was that a comma?) during the last transfer window have now moved slightly and hit the repeat button, for today they are telling us that Tottenham didn’t sign anyone this summer.  They also believe that  Arsenal are going to sign Lille’s Nicolas Pepe and Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembele.

However some “outlets” (drainpipes as most of us call them) are realising the world has moved on as they now create a transfer rumour out of thin air and then tell us that the club is full of idiots for contemplating such a player.   Thus we have

“Arsenal splashing £14m on this La Liga star would be a total waste and Emery should avoid it at” from SoccerSouls.  The idea is that when Arsenal don’t sign the player, the bloggetta can claim that Arsenal have taken their advice.  Yep Trump Thought rules again.

In this case a further twist is added by the site “revealing” not that the player is no good but rather that Arsenal don’t need him.  Him in his case being Real Madrid goalkeeper Keylor Navas who is said to be available for £14m.  When Arsenal don’t sign him, they claim that Arsenal listened.

Logical eh?

So soccersouls tell us there is “no excuse to spend more on another shot-stopper” (that’s goalkeeper in English).  The original source of all this bunch of turnips is the Daily Mirror – who own Football London.  What a surprise.

Meanwhile, further out in the English Channel, Football FanCast has the headline “Arsenal must raid rivals for speedy attacker who is better and younger than Iwobi” with the advice that “Arsenal should make an ambitious move for Chelsea attacker Callum Hudson-Odoi as speculation surrounding the teenager’s future continues to gather pace.”

They also use the new awful buzz phrase from the media “What’s the word then”

What’s the word, then?

(See, told you so)

The Metro goes with

“Arsenal are interested in signing Medhi Benatia from Juventus”.  He is a central defender but is 31.  He is also Moroccan, but isn’t being picked by Juventus at the moment.   Caught Offside say Arsenal have made an approach.

And if Arsenal did sign him it would be “Arsenal sign old-time Juve reject”.

But mostly the suggestion is that we are going to sign Barcelona’s Denis Suarez, who can play left or right wing, and who has worked with Mr Emery before.  And assuming that there is a mistake in the official record of who is home grown and who is not, we do have room for both without worrying about nationality or history.

In short the entire journalistic world is living in a drunker stupor on the floor of the public bar of the Bollard, creating ever more insane tales, and rather curiously no one has noticed, while official records are wrong and have to be corrected by, well us, when we are not making mistakes of our own.  Quite a situation.

Now where’s that rowing boat?