Inter Milan are reportedly prepared to pay €40m for Granit Xhaka as the rumours around his departure refuse to abate and the player does nothing to silence them.

The story started with Swiss outlet RSI Sport, who reported that Xhaka ‘may soon be an Inter player’. They claimed there has already been contact between the Arsenal midfielder and the Serie A club since the hiring of Antonio Conte, who is a fan of the 26-year-old.

Fantagazzetta in Italy also reported that Xhaka is a name that interests Conte as the new Inter head coach believes the Swiss international would be a good fit for his system. However, they add that the deal is complicated by Arsenal’s €40m valuation.

Of course, it didn’t take long for Arsenal’s valuation to become what Inter want to pay, proving that most people covering this story (including us) are just guessing at what’s going on.

A social media rumour that ‘Granit Xhaka’s cousin’ had confirmed the player’s move to Inter Milan was also shut down by the originator of the rumour himself.

In yet another instance of Arsenal Twitter losing their heads over a nonsense rumour, @GrimandiTweets_ spread some screenshots of ‘Granit Xhaka’s cousin’ confirming in a Facebook comment that the 26-year-old had requested to leave the club for Inter Milan.

According to the false claims, Xhaka had asked to leave if the club failed to qualify for the Champions League, and Arsenal were asking for around €55m.

Before long, it emerged that Agron Krasniqi wasn’t actually Xhaka’s cousin, but certain Twitter users continued to believe and spread the rumour anyway.

Thankfully, Krasniqi himself logged back into his old Twitter account to set everyone straight.

https://twitter.com/agronnk/status/1136457073108107264

This one has to be up there with Abou Diaby ‘confirming Higuain was joining’ whilst in a mosque, or the imaginary character Steve Woods hinting at Arsenal signing Karim Benzema from the grave.

Try to utilise at least a healthy dose of scepticism for the rest of the window please, Arsenal fans.