Silly season is very much in full swing and with it comes the never-ending stream of effluent produced on mass by certain unreputable media outlets and individuals.
Not a great source of transfer gossip but Trump has been approached by several high-profile goalkeepers to help them build a defensive wall
While it's good to stay up to date with your chosen team's wheelings and dealings in the transfer market, it's can be very difficult to pick fact from fiction, fake news from real and codswallop from cold hard journalism. So who do you trust?
Here are my list of reputable news sources
BBC Sport - in general once a story hits the BBC website then you know that it is based on actual events as opposed to wild speculation. However, the BBC site itself tends to only report completed or very nearly completed deals so it's good to delve a little deeper and look at a few of their reporters and football correspondents many of whom have established links with clubs in a specific region.
David Ornstein, BBC - Is an excellent source of news in regards London clubs and being a Spurs fan myself I generally look to see what if anything he is reporting on a breaking transfer story. For example, I heard rumblings yesterday about Spurs trying to steal in with a late bid for this defender (never heard of him until Friday morning) but until Ornstein reported it I took it with a pinch of salt. Now the real question is are we really in for this guy or are we just fucking with Arsenal who have a limited budget and a crisis at centre back following Koscielny's hissy fit?
https://twitter.com/bbcsport_david/status/1149662314104156160
- bbcsport_david
Lyall Thomas , Sky - Another decent source of Spurs-related news is Lyall Thomas at Sky Sports. Something fresh off the press from him in regards Kieran Trippier's likely departure from the club. It interests me that he is attracting attention from outside the EPL with a couple of clubs in Italy also rumoured to be interested in man who got a fair bit of flack for his abject performances last season.
https://twitter.com/SkySportsLyall/status/1150109192172244993
- SkySportsLyall
Ed Aarons, The Guardian - Has his ear to the ground on a lot of things football and I've found him particularly reliable on Spurs transfer news. A lot of what he publishes doesn't go through his personal twitter feed but rather the Guardian Sport account. Poor old Christian seems like he's rather shot himself in the foot by playing like a complete and utter tosser for large parts of last season. Note to all "professional" footballers, if you want a move to a higher profile side then it's best to play like you belong at one!
https://twitter.com/guardian_sport/status/1150105552359428096
- guardian_sport
You can be fairly certain that news coming out of most broadsheets at least has some basis of fact but I've also found that most of them have given in to temptation and are quite happy to post click bait on their sites as well. They will generally source anything that isn't their own work so just be sure to check where they are getting their info from.
If that info is from a British tabloid then it's generally crap! These guys will just plain makeup stories, rehash old news or otherwise just reprint other gobbledygook that they will have pinched from equally unreputable sources.
Of course, it isn't always the media's fault. Players, agents and clubs will plant phoney baloney stories out there in order to drum up potential interest or otherwise assist with ongoing contract negotiations - look, everyone is interested in signing me, pay me double what you were or I'm off......
It's a minefield out there.
Who are your top tips for qualified reporting on transfer deals?