By Sir Hardly Anyone
One of the really interesting things that emerges from the current round of stories about football transfers is the number of times publications are re-running the same story, quite often without any reference to their previous coverage of the piece and without any new data to publish.
Such an approach makes it sound as if this is a new story, when in fact they have run it before and all that is happening is this time they are quoting a different source.
But we wondered whether this tendency to re-run a story was just done because the publications couldn’t be bothered to go and find another tale to run, or whether because the story was really hot and the player was about to come to Arsenal.
For example HITC is currently running the story of Mykhaylo Mudryk to Arsenal citing CBS as the source. Last time round they cited Sport Arena. Different source but just the same story re-written.
The result is it looks as if there are vast numbers of players either that Arsenal are chasing or who are clambering to come to Arsenal. Then when the players don’t make it to Arsenal (often it seems because the whole tale was a fantasy and either the current club didn’t want to sell or Arsenal did not want to buy) the tale is then represented as Arsenal being too slow, not making a good enough offer, or the player simply turning Arsenal done (suggesting there is something wrong with Arsenal).
So we’ve started looking for new ways of viewing the stats. Such as the players most mentioned by the media as coming to Arsenal. The answer is
- Mudryk (18 mentions)
- Danilo (13 mentions)
- Marcus Thuram (7 mentions)
- Youri Tielemans (7 mentions)
And we wondered about which publications had found the most transfers. This is harder because some publications get totally fixed on a certain transfer and mention it over and over again. But this list covers articles about incoming Arsenal players (allegedly)
- Football London (FoLo): 18 articles (5 repeats)
- TBR: 13 mentions (5 repeats)
- Caught offside: 12 mentions (4 repeats)
- HITC: 11 mentions (5 repeats)
It’s all a bit bonkers, but it will be interesting to see by the end of January which if any of these oft mentioned players actually turn up at Arsenal, and how much is simply media fantasy.
| Player | Position | Current club | Source | Hits | |
| 1 | Tammy Abraham | Forward | Roma | TBR Caught Offside HITC | 3 |
| 2 | Marco Asensio | Winger | Real Madrid | Daily Canon | 1 |
| 3 | Rodrigo Becao | Defender | Udinese | Arsenal Station, Caught Offside TBR (update) And again TBR | 4 |
| 4 | Jude Bellingham | Midfield | Borussia Dortmund | Metro, FoLo, FoLo again | 3 |
| 5 | Moises Caicedo | Midfield | Brighton | FoLo | 1 |
| 6 | Fares Chaibi | Winger | Toulouse | TBR, Hard Tackle | 2 |
| 7 | Samuel Chukwueze | Winger | Villarreal | Liverpool Echo, Caught Offside KopTimes | 3 |
| Update | Danilo | Midfield | Aston Villa | Caught offside, Give me spor,t Sport Bible, HammerNews, Caught offside (again) Express, HITC Arsenal Station Caught Offside (a 3rd time) Sport Bible (again) HITC (again) HITC | 13 |
| 9 | Memphis Depay | Forward | Barcelona | Sport Bible, TeamTalk Team Talk (again) | 3 |
| NEW | Moussa Diaby | Winger | Bayer Leverkusen | FoLo | 1 |
| 11 | Denzel Dumfries. | Right back | Inter Milan | Chelsea News FoLo | 2 |
| 12 | Endrick Felipe | Striker | Palmeiras | TBR and again here. HITC | 3 |
| 13 | Cody Gakpo | Striker | PSV | TBR, Express, TBR, again FoLo | 5 |
| 14 | Alejandro Garnacho. | Winger | Man U | TBR, Sport Bible TBR (again) | 3 |
| 15 | Ilkay Gundogan | Winger | Man C | FoLo | 1 |
| 16 | Piero Hincapie | Centre Back | Bayer Leverkusen | Fo Lo | 1 |
| 17 | N’Golo Kante | Midfield | Chelsea | Football Fancast | 2 |
| 18 | Joakim Maehle | Full back | Atalanta | FoLo | 1 |
| 19 | Milinkovic-Savic | Midfield | Lazio | HITC, Caught Offside The Laziali | 3 |
| 20 | Cesar Montes | Full back | CF Monterrey | Fo Lo | 1 |
| Update | Mykhaylo Mudryk | Winger | Shakhtar Donetsk | TBR; FoLo , Newcastle World Mailonline. Shields Gazette Caught offside Mirror HITC London World FoLo (again) Team Talk, HITC (again) This is Futbol Mirror Caught Offside (again) Metro, London World Football 365 HITC | 18 |
| NEW | Yunus Musah | Midfield | Valencia | Woolwich 1886 | 1 |
| 23 | Noah Okafor, | Forward | RB Salzburg | FoLo; Sport Witness, Hammers News, HITC Mirror | 4 |
| NEW | Leandro Paredes | Midfield | PSG on loan to Juventue | Caught Offside | 1 |
| 25 | Pepe* | Winger | Porto | HITC | 1 |
| 26 | Adrien Rabiot | Midfield | Juventus | FoLo | 1 |
| 27 | Robert Renan | Defender | Corinthians | Arsenal Station | 1 |
| 28 | Cristiano Ronaldo | Forward | Man U | Express | 1 |
| 29 | Milan Skriniar | Centre back | Inter | Football Talk, FoLo, HITC | 3 |
| 30 | Marcus Thuram | Goalscoring forward | Borussia Monchengladbach | Caught offisde TBR Sportwitness SportBible. TBR (again) , Give me Sport | 7 |
| Update | Youri Tielemans | Midfield | Leicester | FoLo, PG Sport Gooner Talk FoLo (again!) FoLo (they’re obsessed!) Caught Offside FoLo (!!!) | 7 |
| 32 | Facundo Torres | Wing | Orlando City | Express | 1 |
| 33 | Leandro Trossard | Winger | Brighton | Sussex Express | 1 |
| 34 | Zaniolo | Midfield | Roma | Football365, FoLo | 2 |
