Arsenal have been linked with a move for Newcastle United’s 22-year-old Chancel Mbemba as HITC managed to find a centre back on the planet not previously linked to Arsenal.

A rumour that prompted a lot of Newcastle fans to shout ‘f*** off’ at Arsene Wenger (rather than, you’d think, at the reporter writing the article), it makes us smile to see new names linked, if for no other reason than it shows creativity is not totally dead.

A highly-rated defender, the right-footer can also play at right-back as well as in both centre back slots and it is his ability to act as back-up for Hector Bellerin which could have caught Wenger’s eye. As well as his obvious talent, of course.

Under contract until 2020, Mbemba signed for the Magpies last summer from Anderlecht who had picked him up three years earlier from MK Etancheite in DR Congo. He cost £8m and is ‘currently carrying an ankle problem’ but Newcastle would reportedly sell for ‘anything above £15m’ (£15m and £1?). That’s according to HITC.

However, according to The Mag, a Newcastle United site, he has been playing and there’s nothing wrong with him at all. They also call these claims ‘laughable,’ which is not hard to do when you realise that someone is claiming to have landed a nice tasty bit of transfer gossip but can’t even pull up Google to see how many games he’s actually played this season (the answer is 3 v HITC’s initial claim of 0). They rewrote this bit to correct their ‘mistake.’

The main source for this, as I mentioned, is HITC who claim their information through the infamous ‘understands’ qualifier.

Daily Cannon understands that people who tend to use ‘understands’ are hiding a ‘source’ they have little-to-no confidence in.

Except in my example just there, obviously.