Thanks to one of our readers, Ron, we were alerted to a delightful story doing the rounds yesterday about Newcastle’s transfer plans for the summer. Barcelona may have conceded just 20 goals in 34 La Liga games this season, but it turns out that they would like to spruce up their back line with Newcastle’s Steven Taylor.
That’s right - you heard - Steven Taylor, who has also been playing for a league-topping side this season, albeit one that’s had to play the likes of Plymouth and Peterborough rather than Real Madrid and Valencia.
In return, Barcelona were prepared to offer Carles Puyol. That’s right - you heard - Carles Puyol, the 32 year-old captain of the side, a proud Catalan who’s played only for Barcelona at club level, and has more than 80 international caps. Now there’s a swap deal and a half.
Barcelona do have some previous on bizarre swap deals - cash and Eto’o for Ibrahamovic last season is a deal which still takes a little explaining - but none of this makes any sense. So where does the story begin?
The answer, apparently, is in Spain. Certainly that’s what IMscouting and Who Ate All the Pies reckon, and look no further than Sport. Online, there is only this:
El Newcastle United, que la próxima campaña volverá a jugar en la Premier League, estaría interesado, según aseguran algunos medios, en un trueque entre Steven Taylor, defensa central de 24 años, y Carles Puyol.
Roughly translated:
Newcastle United, who play next season in the Premier League again, would be interested, as some media say, in an exchange between Steven Taylor, 24 year-old centre-half, and Carles Puyol.
That’s the whole story. Two salient points - they’re not claiming to have started this story, and they’re only arguing that Newcastle United would be interested in such a deal. Too right they would - they’d probably also trade Andy Carroll for Leo Messi, but that doesn’t make it a good idea for Barcelona.
Anyway, baseless and quoteless as it appears to be, the trail appears to start here. And despite the scepticism, it gets publicised regardless. Here’s how the aforementioned IMScouting take it on:
According to Sport, not only are Barcelona interested in taking Taylor to the Nou Camp, they predict a swap deal for Carles Puyol who would lead Newcastle into the Premier League next season.
Wait a minute! Unless there’s text we haven’t found, that’s a major piece of twisting! Sport make no mention of Barcelona’s interest or lack thereof in such a deal. That’s a rather important aspect of the story to step around.
What’s more, IMscouting also tell you that it’s probably all bull anyway:
Sport have a history of spurious transfer gossip and earlier this season claimed Barcelona were interested in signing Manchester United’s John O’Shea.
Don’t print it then.
Of course, the art of not printing a story has a tendency to be overlooked, and sure enough the story soon found its way into mainstream British media, regardless of whether there was any veracity or fact-checking done:
Steven Taylor has caught the eye of Barcelona who are ready to make a summer move for the England Under-21 defender.
The Geordie stopper has a year left on his deal and faces crunch talks with the club next month over his future.
Newcastle are unlikely to risk letting Taylor walk away on a free in a years’ time, writing off a potential £8million transfer fee, and will need to secure him on a longer term deal.
But with money tight at St James’ Park it is doubtful that £30k a week Taylor will get the rise he wants and it could spell the end, with the Spanish giants interested, along with Everton and Aston Villa.
Newcastle will reject the chance to take Carles Puyol as part of any deal because of his age and wages.
Perhaps that’s all true. Who knows? Given all the quotes and sources and little twists and turns of the ‘original’ ‘facts’, we’d suspect it’s more of a case of Steven Taylor and Carles Puyol in swap deal purple monkey dishwasher:
