We're mostly dealing with The Mirror and Marca here, so let's take everything with the appropriate lumps of salt, but the last 24 hours has seen some strange developments in the Iago Aspas transfer deal, even by silly season standards. Liverpool were reported yesterday to have erred badly with their negotiations that were supposedly all but settled, identifying representatives of the player's that weren't actually official representatives of the player's. That's sort of an important part of any transfer, I'd think, but it's apparently not anything that's going to kill the move, which the player has spoken excitedly about today.
"When I heard of Liverpool's interest I did not hesitate even for a minute. It is one of the biggest clubs in the world and although I also had offers from Italy and Portugal and other countries I decided that my future was in English football. I am very calm but at the same time very excited because I am making a very significant step forward in my sporting career."
It'd be easy to get hung up on the buffoonery that's apparently taken place to this point, and with a handful of reliable outlets asserting that the deal would be wrapped up by week's end, it's reasonable enough to entertain the notion that whoever was in charge of talking to the right people didn't necessarily get that part of it right. Again, though, we're dealing with a story from paper that's more tabloid than anything else, so their darts could have landed on "Ian Ayre" and "people posing as agents for fun because that's what people do to pass the time in mysterious foreign lands right?"
But if the deal's done the deal's done, and while Marca aren't exactly the most reputable, there's no reason to think any sort of hiccup would render the deal null and void. With Daniel Sturridge's fitness in question and Luis Suarez out for the first six matches, early confirmation that Liverpool will have Aspas in and ready to go would do a fair bit to assuage concerns about their attacking contingent to start the season.