I have to admit that I never understand where the journalists get their inspiration, but our friends at The People sunk to new depths of desperation this morning in the hope of pulling off a real coup. If suggesting that City is willing to offer one English pound more than any other club would pay for Fernando Torres wasn’t bad enough, then our apparent £9m interest in Charles N’Zogbia saw them hitting rock bottom.

Of course as you would all expect that the reliable source used came from a journalist’s best friend ‘the insider’. It’s all so easy and obviously they believe that supporters are idiots and will buy into this sort of tripe, as long as they inform us an ‘insider’ or a ‘source close to the club’ has fed them the information.

“They are willing to pay one pound more than the best offer that comes in for Fernando," a source close to Torres told the paper.”

“City wants to prepare a new project with Torres as their main star. Next season they want to make sure they are fighting for the Premier League title from the first moment again."

Perhaps Liverpool should put out their own statement via the press claiming that Barcelona has tabled a £100m bid and see if this ‘insider’ is as good as his word.

Elsewhere in this pathetic excuse of a paper we have apparently sent three scouts to watch Wigan’s game in midweek to watch Charles N’Zogbia. The journalist didn’t claim an ‘insider’ on this occasion, but it must have been obvious that the French winger was the object of their attentions and not one of the other 21 players that were on the pitch that day. Let me work this out. ‘Liverpool need width in the team and with the knowledge that Hodgson has money to spend’ – absolute genius, god it is easy this journalism lark isn’t it? Perhaps one of the stipulations of working for The People is that you must make 2+2 equal five.

I know I shouldn’t get riled by this and should accept it as part of the course, but these fabricated lies simply boils my blood and the problem with them is, especially in the case of Torres, is that they simply have no purpose other than to unsettle the player. Why I am not naive enough to realise that is the sole intention to seed further headlines, I ask the question as to why the press allowed to get away with it, time after time - shouldn’t the club look to challenge these damaging headlines on a daily basis, before they fester into something that could prove problematic long term?

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