The official Arsenal FC homepage has a section that updates daily with a collection of Gunners news story links circulating in the Twitterverse, blogosphere, cyberspace and media world.
Today, they shockingly linked two Sunday back page transfer gossip stories pertaining to four players, and then promoted their news round-up page thusly:
The media have linked @Arsenal with a Premier League defender and three strikers: https://t.co/UOpefn7KCi pic.twitter.com/qep4jewhzM
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) May 29, 2016
This is highly unconventional to say the least, as we all know to take these kinds of stories with a grain of salt. They’re just talk, interesting click-bait, not hard news. However, when you put these kinds of stories on an official team website, it gives them an added amount of weight and additional credibility.
Especially so when you’re talking about Jamie Vardy, the main scorer on current Premier League Champion Leicester City. Here’s how the page linked the Daily Mirror and Daily Star stories.
Arsenal have been linked with moves for Alvaro Morata, Gonzalo Higuain and Jamie Vardy – DAILY STAR
The Mirror reports that Arsenal are interested in signing Kurt Zouma from Chelsea – DAILY MIRROR
Related: round-up of links to other Arsenal FC transfer rumors in the Sunday back pages today, including Oxlade-Chamberlain, David Ospina and more.
Also, linking themselves to a major defender on a hated London rival is really going to stir people up too. It’s one thing for a newspaper site, or a blog or any independent media outlet to publish links to such stories. When the actual official team site does it, that conveys an entirely different type of meaning.
Who’s to say if this link really means that Jamie Vardy could be coming to the Emirates? Probably not.
It’s more likely just a questionable decision by the webmaster at the club today.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram