Your Transfer Rumour is Bullshit: Pedro Obiang to Liverpool

There are some universals in Liverpool fandom, and at the top of the list is that The Sun are a loathsome outlet not fit to be used as fishwrap and that beyond any larger disdain for the disgraceful so-called news outlet, that it’s a disgraceful so-called news outlet with less than zero insight into the goings on at Liverpool Football Club.

The Sun are, it’s entirely fair to say, the worst. The only thing they’re good at is being fucking awful. And, given their overwhelming awfulness extends to covering football, they sometimes start transfer rumours. And on occasion, for whatever reason, they decide to start transfer rumours involving Liverpool. This week, it’s Pedro Obiang.

Only it would be easy enough to miss that it’s The Sun who started it at this point, because that’s how transfer rumours tend to work. One person says something, then another, then it changes a little and loses attribution to the original source, then it gets repeated again. Rather like the world’s most horrible game of telephone.

So. Obiang. To Liverpool. From West Ham. For £18M. It seems unlikely enough on the surface, frankly, but then most transfer rumours are. And this is a transfer rumour the club’s official website have published in their “media watch” section built to house transfer rumours. Because it may be bullshit, but it’s bullshit people want to read.

Liverpool Football Club’s official website, then, is carrying it. It’s from a digital outlet, ClubCall, who don’t say where they got it from. And because of that, it’s inevitable today that Liverpool fan sites will start to discuss the Obiang to Liverpool rumour. Because while it may be sketchy, it’s sketchy that’s been carried by the official site.

About twelve hours before ClubCall ran the Obiang to Liverpool rumour, though, it was a rumour that was in The Metro. And in The Metro, there was an acknowledgement that they were simply regurgitating a rumour that had earlier appeared in—you guessed it—The Sun. Who claimed that Jürgen Klopp has made Obiang a top target.

The Sun don’t know who Jürgen Klopp has made a top target of. Give it a day and a couple of iterations, though, and ClubCall will say Obiang is a top target because The Metro did but they’ll leave out the part about The Sun and then the club’s official website will throw up the rumour and then Liverpool fans will start to talk about it.

Needless to say, they shouldn’t. Whether one thinks Obiang for £18M would be a good idea or not (it wouldn’t be), this is a transfer rumour that is pure and unadulterated bullshit.