Rumor Mongering: Nobody's Coming to Liverpool Edition

Writing about transfer rumors is mostly a visceral experience for me--it's impossible to stifle my deep-seeded disdain for talking about things that might be possible and then freaking out or celebrating or weeping or rage vomiting. Yesterday was sort of a weeping/rage vomiting day, mostly due to not really that much of anything, but you know, rumor mongering and stuff.

Fabio Borini surged into the picture since the last time we took a look at players linked with moves into or out of Liverpool, and for a period over the past week it looked like there was a very strong chance he'd be re-joining Brendan Rodgers after a fairly successful season with Roma. Borini had been loaned to Swansea for the last two months of the 2010-2011 season, where he found both playing time and success under Rodgers, for whom he'd played in the Chelsea youth setup. A return to Chelsea wasn't on the cards, and he went on to join Parma early last summer before being loaned to Roma in August.

Liverpool entered the picture during a strange time in the player's contract phase--Parma and Roma were due a blind auction for the player's rights because of their co-ownership status, and news grew that Liverpool were hoping to enter the picture if Parma were the winners given their apparent desire to offload a player that hadn't actually ever played for them.

With Roma submitting the winning bid at an amount in the region of €5.3 million, however, chances seem slim that Liverpool are still in the picture, especially considering Borini's agent comments on the outcome:

"Since the first day he moved to Roma, Fabio's wish has been to become a Roma player. We had hoped that the clubs would find an agreement and we had to wait. Now we can say that we are very happy. Fabio is delighted and is ready to begin a true new adventure with Roma."

Lord knows we can't stop at statements of fact, so we'll likely continue to hear plenty more about whether or not Borini will be reunited yet again with Brendan Rodgers late into the summer. His arrival wouldn't be a bad thing, mind, as he's clearly a promising talent and would be a good fit for Rodgers' preferred style of play. And, based on the reaction of most when the news of Roma's winning bid broke, most were disappointed that a potential move was ruled out. OR WAS IT?!?

Aside from Borini, much of of the focus has been on Gylfi Sigurðsson, who's been more or less a lock in many minds since it became clear that his move to Swansea was nixed with the exit of Rodgers. And, as it's looked over the past few weeks, it was only a matter of time until he was a Liverpool player, with multiple trusted sources confirming the presence of strong interest on behalf of both parties.

Yesterday everything apparently changed, or at least someone started writing things in German and then Matt Law got high and mighty and then people started to type all their words in all-caps and talking about relegation. Five minutes on a Liverpool-focused timeline, folks.

Sigurðsson could still end up a Liverpool player, or he could head the way of Spurs, as was the main source of displeasure and societal unrest yesterday. It'd be a loss if he joined the London club, not only because of how strong the links have been in recent days, but because he--like Borini, even moreso--is a talented young player who's proven to be effective in Brendan Rodgers' setup.

We have to acknowledge, though, that yesterday was at least a three-quarters Mata on the Liverpool Transfer Rumors Panic Scale. Sigurðsson seems very promising, no doubt. For all intents and purposes, he'd be a great signing. If he signs, great. If not, Liverpool will likely survive. Twitter might not.

A couple new(ish) names have also popped up in the last week or so that probably aren't worth mentioning, but it's not rumor mongering if we're not grabbing random names out of our ass. So step up James Rodriguez and André Schürrle, the former of whom was seen on Manchester United's radar after a very good season for Porto, and the latter of whom was most recently in the spotlight for helping Germany glide past Greece into the semifinals. Will they sign? Most definitely not. Nobody's going to. But they do have names and have kicked a football before, which qualifies them for a video compilation and a recent comment on YouTube that says "Welcome to Liverpool" in a very optimistic and depressing fashion.

Speaking of depressing things, our last bit focuses on Craig Bellamy, who's been connected with a return to Cardiff, where, in the words of Iwan Roberts, he's got "unfinished business." Listen, the past three transfer windows have been bad enough--Fernando Torres left in January 2011, Charlie Adam and Stewart Downing signed as Raul Meireles left in the summer of 2011, and Charlie Adam and Stewart Downing didn't leave in January of 2012 or so far in the summer of 2012. So yeah, Bellamy needs to stay.

Also, someone needs to start a rumor that Downing and Adam are leaving. And then make it a reality. I'm looking at you, Sam Allardyce.