There seems to be an inverse relation whereby the closer you get to a transfer deadline, the weirder the rumours become.
During the season, you get weird headlines like Claudio Ranieri playing down comparisons between Jamie Vardy and Neymar, but they’re at least rooted in something verging on reality.
Come the summer, though, and it’s effectively a free-for-all. Out goes the laugh-out-loud and in comes the laugh-in-their-face.
You get arguments like ‘Mkhitaryan’s sister followed Arsenal on LinkedIn – it’s a sign’ or ‘Sure, why wouldn’t Mario Balotelli move to Manchester United?’.
https://twitter.com/AlexDeakin_/status/756980742329143298
Next in the queue is the tried and tested ‘Instagram follow’ routine.
You know the drill. Player follows potential new club or potential teammates on Instagram, rumour sites lap it up, punters see reports and place bets, bookies slash odds based on betting activity, news sites run stories based on odds being slashed. Rinse and repeat.
Except now, it seems, it doesn’t even need to be the player himself who’s responsible for the Instagram follow.
Rebeca Tavares has followed Manchester United on Instagram. If you don’t know who that is, we’re not going to judge you.
It turns out she is the wife of Fabinho, the Monaco right-back who has been linked with a move to Old Trafford.
Yes, Tavares has followed Manchester United. In between Bulgari, Channing Tatum, Anderson Silva and Mesut Özil.
What could it possibly mean? Maybe that she is a complex human being with a variety of different interests.
‘But United kept the number two shirt free for Fabinho,’ we hear you aggressively type into our website’s non-existent comment box.
Hold your horses. If Tavares was so keen on a move to Manchester, would she have also followed (dun-dun-dun)…
…BARCELONA?
Maybe Fabinho’s hedging his bets. Or telling each of Rebeca’s social media managers a different lie, in the hope of singling out which one has been spreading rumours about him.
If so, it hasn’t worked. Or maybe it’s worked too well.
Looking at some of her other follows, if Fabinho does indeed move to Old Trafford he could be followed to the club by a former player making a long-awaited return.
Could it be Gerard Piqué? Or maybe…
Oh God no! Kill it with fire!
Alex Livesey/Getty Images
Read more: