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Gossip Folks – The Transfer Rumour Mill (Summer 2012 Edition)

Back in January I conducted an experiment whereby I kept a log of all the player rumours in the press and matched them up with what happened; not just to look at accuracy but to show how transfer stories evolve and to help people spot the scoop from the hubris. With the transfer window now properly open, I’ve decided to start it again, backdated to July 1.

The rules are simple; I’m only looking at transfer stories from “legitimate sources” – so for example The Mirror and the Daily Mail are in because they’re newspapers whereas Tribalfootball and Clubcall are out because they work on a much more gossipy basis. I will consider news from foreign sources with similar caveats – ie it’s got to be a proper news source and not some work of fantasy. I’m going to put them all together into a spreadsheet which I’ll then link on here and update you all about once a week or so.

One of the big rumours I’ve already seen was the perennial “Zigic to a.n.other Spanish club” which seems to crop up in the Mirror every transfer window. This time it was Espanyol who were mentioned as the interested party. I’ll say right now that I consider this rumour laughable; we all know Zigic is on humongous wages here in Brum – and well, Espanyol were struggling to pay their players back in May (credit to Tarantini from SHA for the Spanish link). I think I can safely say that this one is most likely something put out by Ziggy’s agent trying to start some interest… like he does every window.

I’m not going to add twitter rumours onto the spreadsheet; partly because I haven’t got enough time in the day and partly because very few seem to be based in fact. Last night it was “Chris Burke to Norwich for £5mil” – which seemed to come originally from a post on a Norwich supporter’s forum. I’ve been using this word a lot recently, but it’s hubris on some Canary fan’s part in my opinion. Whilst there has always been the people who claim that they are “In the know” the internet has caused the phenomenon to grow rapidly and has given them a platform to pronounce their latest proclamations. I’ve said this a lot but I’m going to say it again – treat everything you read (including this) with a grain of salt.

If you’ve seen anything juicy that you think I might have missed please feel free to drop me a line and I’ll look into it further. I’m intending to put the first installment of the spreadsheet up on Monday 9 July.

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