Make Up is: Lies

The question is when did rumour-mongering become news?  When did it become customary to have unsourced stories linking clubs with players?  No evidence offered and no responsibility when nothing happens. Like The Mirror and the ridiculous "Ronaldo to Man City for all the tea in China" story which they reported as fact and next day reported Ronaldo laughing the thing off.  no, "We were wrong," it's like its acceptable to print lies.  In the good old days I assume sports pages were full of cricket during the summer.  Now they're full of lies during the summer, all in the name of entertainment.  Though to be fair, there would be no paper round up without them... So with that in mind -

Modric the main story and the rumour that we're going to enter the race for his signature.  The Guardian report:

Luka Modric would be open to joining Manchester United if Sir Alex Ferguson starts a bidding war with Chelsea by following the west London club in making an official offer for the Tottenham Hotspur midfielder.

After Chelsea had an initial £22m offer rejected, United are considering their options before deciding when to enter the market for a player openly admired by Ferguson, who claims he is the best footballer in England. Manchester City, the Premier League's richest club, also retain an interest and if their billionaire owner, Sheikh Mansour, enters the auction to land Modric then Spurs can expect his price to rise beyond £35m.

While The Daily Star put 2 and 2 together and come up with 73:

DIMITAR BERBATOV may be used as bait by Sir Alex Ferguson in a bid to lure Luka Modric to Manchester United.

Sir Alex Ferguson is a huge admirer of Luka Modric and has made the Tottenham star one of his main summer transfer targets. 

Which, as I was saying above, isn't news, it's someone thinking aloud, "Berba seems surplus, they want Modric, let's guess at this story." Is that any way to run a newspaper.  Or even The Daily Star...The Independent have a pretty sensible view of the thing:

The club are confident that the player and his agent Mario Mamic have no interest in moving this summer. However, they do realise that Modric's £40,000-a-week wages – modest by Premier League standards for a player of his class – are due re-appraisal.

There is no financial imperative to sell Modric this summer on Spurs' part and the length of his contract gives them protection against a situation where they could lose him for nothing.

Which implies only a very big bid would prise him away.  There's also the question of how much Modric wants Champions League football.

The Sun have Redknapp's quotes, which say much the same thing:

"Tottenham are not selling Modric, end of story. I've spoken at length to the chairman Daniel Levy and he said Luka is not for sale. So that's good enough for me.

"Every club in the world would want a player with his ability - but he is ours and that is the way it is staying."

The Daily Mail have the strangest take on it. They have Manchester City launching a purely spoiling bid for him: 

Sources close to Modric believe City, with their vast wealth, will do everything in their power to prevent him joining one of their Barclays Premier League rivals. 

Is that as stupid as these stories come?  Not only do they have a club spending all that money just to stop someone else getting him, but the source is "close to Modric," who know what Modric thinks presumably (they won't), but why they'd know City's plans is a mystery.

Sanchez is now linked to Chelsea as well - it's in The Mirror so almost certainly a lie. 

There's reports today that our long-standing target, Raphael Varane is now also in doubt as Varane is worried there won't be many first team opportunities for him with us. A report in a French paper also claimed he'd been seen at Real Madrid (couldn't find the link for that one).

The Mail speculate that Bolton, who the Mail made up a story linking them to Wes Brown, no longer, if they ever did, want to sign Wes Brown. Meta.

A story in all the papers, here in The Independent, Sir Alex backs Alex McLeish for the Villa job:

"At the end of the day what will count is this: can he do the job for Villa? It doesn't matter whether there are five against him, 50 against him or 500 against him, because the experience and the ability he has got, believe me, he will prove he can do the job. And that's what it's all about.

"Once the fans are confronted by the reality that he's the manager, they will step back and say, 'Well, we've made our complaints and voiced our opinion, let's see what happens next and give the man his chance'. There are some good players at Villa and overall it's a really good set-up. It takes time to get a manager to get what you want out of your team and the Villa fans need to give Alex the time to do that, too."

Something that has actually happened, Bebe has gone to Besiktas on loan.

Humorous quote from Michael Owen in The Mirror on his winning a race, he states the obvious to a stupid question:

Asked if it was better than scoring a hat-trick for England, Owen said: "I've scored a couple of them. It's a bit different owning a horse that wins at Royal Ascot."

Quite.

Finally, here's a link to the fixtures for next season that were out this morning, sesaon starts at West Brom.