The American has been strongly linked with a move to Liverpool over the past few weeks, with bids and medicals and astronomical shirt sales in the US frequently rumored to be just around the corner. Opinions have been mixed about how he'd benefit the club--he'd certainly provide support in linking play from the midfield forward, and last season he poured in a fair few goals for a side that often struggled to find the net. Others, self included, find him to be slightly overrated and not worth the potential cost, particularly given his age and an attitude that doesn't always see his ego and talent on the same plane.
But regardless of your opinion, there appeared to be a brief period this morning during which Clint Dempsey was a Liverpool player, added to the NESN website alongside Fabio Borini one of the club's summer signings.
"The team has added Fabio Borini and Clint Dempsey to a team that game(sic) within a game of winning the FA Cup."
The sentence was quickly edited to remove Dempsey's name, and the intern likely assigned to the Pinterest division of NESN's website. Which, if there's a choice between monitoring Liverpool's transfer activity and posting to Pinterest, might be the better option.
In the end it could be a hopeful error at best, but it's been clear that Liverpool's interest is a very real thing, and late last week there were reports of Dempsey requesting a move to Merseyside. Fulham have denied receiving offers from any club and actively discouraged bids, which is sort of expected when there's the possibility of losing a player that's been among their best over the past few seasons.
So either something's actually happening very soon or it's not, and Clint Dempsey is a marketing tool--or just, you know, a tool--by the owners to drive business stateside. We'll obviously continue to keep a lookout for any related news, but given that the pseudo-official website of the ownership group broke the story that never was, odds are we'll just have to wait until we actually see Dempsey, or anyone else for the matter, in a Liverpool shirt.
Hopefully just not on August 31.