Liam Miller - Photo Peadar O'Sullivan CCA
While you would have thought that a short article naming a rumoured player and a new club would be fairly easy to knock together if you had a source and some facts, you’re of course assuming that there is a source and some facts.
The Mirror have excelled themselves this morning with the news that Sheffield Wednesday will be in for Collins John and Liam Miller, both plucked from the barrel of Championship plausi-names, presumably on the grounds that they’re relatively high profile and have played in the Premiership before:
Owls boss Brian Laws wants to take John from Dutch club NEC Nijmegen, while Miller can leave Sunderland after being on loan with Queens Park Rangers last season.
As the excellent Football365 Mediawatch points out, the only difficulties here are that neither player is at either aforementioned club.
Collins John only last week joined the Belgian League with Roeselare - for the Flemish speakers amongst you, here is the proof on the official website. He’s probably not thinking about a return to the Premiership this week.
As for Liam Miller, well, his loan deal from Sunderland to QPR was not a loan as much as it was a deal - he had a permanent contract until the end of the season. When the end of the season came, QPR released him. So he probably won’t need permission from Sunderland to talk about a deal.
Great accuracy from the Mirror, but you’d expect nothing less, of course. Why, after all, this is the same player who was the subject of a similar rumour on June 26th from the same paper with the brilliant headline:
Sheffield Wednesday eye Owls midfielder Liam Miller
Will you tell them or shall I? And on this occasion, the rumour is a loan deal, again from a club who stopped owning him in January.
