Exclusive! All Kinds of Liverpool Transfer News!

... and none of it true!

“Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson sold by Liverpool” read one headline; “record-wages” paid by Liverpool said another. “Deal done” as Liverpool line up world-class star came another.

Click on any of them and you get various short paragraphs of deliberate, delaying waffle interspersed with pop-ups and pop-in and pop-under ads, that you have to avoid focussing on as it’s clearly for something utterly shite or shady, before, after you’ve clicked halfway down to “continue reading”, you realise that “AI has ‘sold’ Salah and Robertson”, and the record wages are for a lad of 15.

The deal done is for some Liverpool U18 player who has been released and joined Grimsby or Rotherham, or bought a house on the Isle of Wight.

Yesterday, the Liverpool Echo headline was “Cesc Fabregas in double Liverpool transfer swoop”.

Yes, for Pepe Reina and Alberto Moreno.

Or this, with the subhead only available once you’ve wasted your time clicking on it.

Googling for transfer news is like scraping the bottom of a barrel that is lined with rotting fish guts. It used to be bad; now it’s just a trick that really, really stinks. And the longer it goes on, the worse it smells. These outlets get your clicks, but lose your respect.

Clickbait has become constant Rick-rolling, except you don’t even get the joy of seeing a 1980s tea-boy dancing badly in his first pop video.

You just get an avalanche of junk ads that make actually reading anything, if there was anything of substance to read, impossible.

If that’s your business model, enjoy its last dying days, folks. Every click you get dissolves trust that bit more.

(I’ve done a few ironic clickbait titles, but with engaging content; albeit the one where I said Roberto Firmino had been arrested got a million hits in 24 hours, when I was joking about the filth of his double-pirouette against Newcastle a few years ago, which surely had to be illegal. I didn’t expect it to go that viral!)

We are approaching the 15th anniversary of TTT being paywalled, and while we’ve broken zero transfer stories, we’re still going strong, even if I’m going slightly less strong.

Indeed, age and deterioration of various kinds catches up with us all, even if people refuse to acknowledge it.

For a while, it’s good to try and fight ageing; but then it takes you anyway. If you’re Portugal, it takes everyone down with you.

As for transfers, you’ll find no insider information in this article. And no bullshit, pop-up ads, trolls, or ways to possibly extend your penis, if you have one.

(And blessedly, it’s not yet open season on referees, so they, and you, can rest for now. I was aiming for an amnesty last season, but four red cards to Reds in the early weeks and various other hideous decisions kiboshed that.)

You may occasionally encounter a grumpy middle-aged man, who can be cranky in the comments section at times, but none of us are perfect.

That said, before reading the rest of this article, you may want to buy my most recent Liverpool FC special edition book, but if you’re reading this, it may be of interest to you. Again, it’s ad free. You just read the thing.