Does today’s rumor mean that Mesut Ozil is coming to D.C. United?

Today, another rumor about Mesut Ozil coming to D.C. United popped up in the British press. Since our own Jason Anderson has created a detailed guide on how to evaluate such rumors, let’s take this article and put it through.

Criteria 1: Are there actual quotes anywhere in the piece?

The article is 4 sentences long and contain no quotes from anyone, so it fails this criteria far and away.

As Jason said in the original guide:

The lowest form of transfer rumor involves taking an out-of-date rumor that maybe did have some juice at some point and serving it back up some time in the future, with no new developments or sourcing.

It is looking like that is exactly what we have here! Everything in this article has been rumored in the past, and hey look it just happens to be another open transfer window.

Criteria 2: Who is doing the reporting?

Chris Wheatley has over 100,000 followers on Twitter, and was considered reliable by Arsenal fans when he was at goal.com, but football.london is in the bottom tier of reliability in various reddit guides created by fans of Premier League teams.

You should all bookmark Jason’s piece and refer to it often, but this “article” obviously fails the criteria he put forth. Is it possible that Mesut Ozil will eventually end up at D.C. United? Sure, I guess (though his money demands make it pretty unlikely). Does this article provide us with anything we didn’t know last summer? Nope.

We’ll all make it through silly season together, fam.