Here at NUFCFEED as we hunt around for interesting Newcastle United stories to cover we run into some outrageous transfer stories and quite often we just laugh and move on, but sometimes they're just too mental to ignore.
In doing this job you tend to get a flavour for which outlets to trust when it comes to transfer stories, and while you can never guarantee accuracy, you can often get an idea of which outlets have at least some connections to the actually footballing world and which use a random word generator to create transfer stories on slow news days.
One of the worst offenders for this is a site in Spain called Fichajes. As a rule of thumb, if you see their name connected to a transfer story you can almost guarantee there's no truth to it, unless it has been reported elsewhere and they are relaying the information.
Today their random word generator has spewed up Sandro Tonali and AC Milan and so a transfer story that Milan are set to offer Tonali his dream return in the summer was born.
It's not exactly a secret that there's some unfinished business in Milan for Tonali and that he's almost guaranteed to return there at some point in his career.
However, to suggest that Milan would have the gaul to try and bring him back so soon after they sold him to Newcastle with the knowledge that he was facing a lengthy ban is insanity.
Milan have always denied that they knew about Tonali's gambling issues, but the footballing world was stunned when he moved to Newcastle for just £55 million given how highly they rated him, so the suggestion is that they knew what was coming and they cashed in.
Sandro Tonali owes Newcastle at least a few years of his career after that move and he seems the type of man who will pay that debt of gratitude before considering a return to Milan.
We panicked at first when we saw the story, but when we spotted that it originated on Fichajes the panic immediately subsided.
Milan may well want him back in the summer, but we just cannot see it happening so soon after returning from his 10-month ban.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
10 | 13 | 25 |
2 |
Manchester City
|
10 | 10 | 23 |
3 |
Nottingham Forest
|
10 | 7 | 19 |
4 |
Chelsea
|
10 | 8 | 18 |
5 |
Arsenal
|
10 | 6 | 18 |
6 |
Aston Villa
|
10 | 2 | 18 |
7 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
10 | 11 | 16 |
8 |
Brighton
|
10 | 3 | 16 |
9 |
Fulham
|
10 | 1 | 15 |
10 |
Bournemouth
|
10 | 1 | 15 |
11 |
Newcastle United
|
10 | 0 | 15 |
12 |
Brentford
|
10 | -1 | 13 |
13 |
Manchester United
|
10 | -3 | 12 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
10 | -6 | 11 |
15 |
Leicester
|
10 | -4 | 10 |
16 |
Everton
|
10 | -7 | 9 |
17 |
Crystal Palace
|
10 | -5 | 7 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
10 | -11 | 5 |
19 |
Southampton
|
10 | -12 | 4 |
20 |
Wolves
|
10 | -13 | 3 |