Silly season is almost here, so we're going to start seeing more and more transfer rumors made up in order to sell papers. Today brought us one of those clearly fictional stories, courtesy of The Daily Mail:
Manchester United and Chelsea will run the rule over Jackson Martinez on Thursday night. The Colombia striker is due to play for Porto in their Europa League tie at Sevilla.
This is one of those reports that you can immediately discount as rubbish, because Jackson Martinez will not be playing tonight. The forward is suspended for this match and won't be in the 18-man squad, and a simple google search could have saved Simon Jones from looking stupid*. While it would not be surprising if the current United hierarchy sent a team to scout him without being aware of this, there's absolutely no way that Chelsea would make this error.
*Again
Frankly, there's just little reason to believe that Chelsea would still have interest in Jackson unless Porto are willing to sell at a discount, as he's had a relatively poor season on the whole. Regardless, they won't be scouting the player today, despite what The Daily Mail would have you believe. Typical fail from The Mail.
Note: The Mail article has now been altered. Luckily, I screen grabbed the original. Enjoy.