Newcastle United fans have been served up a couple of cautionary tales over the last couple of weeks.
Stories on social media usually peddled by "ITKs" or In The Know accounts for the uninitiated can often take on a life of their own despite even the most cursory of glances letting you know that it's complete Bolsheviks.
A tweet that Bruno Guimaraes' £100million release clause had been activated spread like wildfire across social media a few days ago despite there being no official word from anyone, or even a semi-respected journalist having mentioned it other than to rubbish it.
Even yesterday, Keith Downie was forced to make a point of rubbishing talk that Asmir Begovic was Toon-bound.
One of the biggest ones that was picked up by some online media outlets such as Football Insider - who would literally write about a transfer story if a player farted in the direction of a new stadium - was that Newcastle had made a bid for Barcelona forward Ferran Torres.
Newcastle had been linked with Torres before a year after his move from Manchester City to Barcelona and things hadn't really worked out for the Spain international, so it wasn't totally unbelievable.
The reason you didn't see that story on our site is that one quick look revealed that the X account that started it was that of a Twitch channel - so it was clearly either completely made up for clout, or they'd been paid to start the rumour to generate a buzz around Torres by his agency or something like that - it happens.
It wasn't long before the story went away but just to make certain, Spanish outlet SPORT has shared that Ferran Torres has said that he has no intention of leaving Barcelona.
His goalscoring form at Barca hasn't been anywhere near what it was at Man City, but he's not about to give up just yet.
Ferran Torres famously scored a hattrick against Newcastle in a 4-3 defeat at St James' Park, so he knows how to find the net on Barrack Road. He'd be a good signing if there were any truth in it whatsoever.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
13 | 18 | 34 |
2 |
Arsenal
|
13 | 12 | 25 |
3 |
Chelsea
|
13 | 12 | 25 |
4 |
Brighton
|
13 | 5 | 23 |
5 |
Manchester City
|
13 | 3 | 23 |
6 |
Nottingham Forest
|
13 | 3 | 22 |
7 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
13 | 14 | 20 |
8 |
Brentford
|
13 | 3 | 20 |
9 |
Manchester United
|
13 | 4 | 19 |
10 |
Fulham
|
13 | 0 | 19 |
11 |
Newcastle United
|
13 | 0 | 19 |
12 |
Aston Villa
|
13 | -3 | 19 |
13 |
Bournemouth
|
13 | 1 | 18 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
13 | -7 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
13 | -11 | 11 |
16 |
Leicester
|
13 | -11 | 10 |
17 |
Crystal Palace
|
13 | -7 | 9 |
18 |
Wolves
|
13 | -10 | 9 |
19 |
Ipswich
|
13 | -11 | 9 |
20 |
Southampton
|
13 | -15 | 5 |