By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions. We in turn value your personal details in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Please log in or register. Registered visitors get fewer ads.
For national outlets football rumours are low stakes fun that drives traffic. If you're wrong it's not like politics or anything else serious, no one is going to sue you for running a speculative story that turns out to be wrong.
To stand up that first story the journalist just had to find someone who was a plausible inside source on McKenna's thinking. Didn't have to be McKenna, didn't even have to be his agent, just someone with a reasonable claim to have an inside track on his thinking in that moment. Doesn't really matter if you have to write the opposite five days later because things move on so fast in football.