4 dumbest transfer rumors this week: Coutinho for Rakitic?

The summer transfer window is upon us and every team’s fans are dreaming of a big signing.

Transfer rumors are really cooling down now as the deadline approaches. The Premier League season kicked off last weekend, and many players who switched shirts this summer — Wayne Rooney, Romelu Lukaku, Alexandre Lacazette, and so on — scored in their debuts with their new clubs.

Every week, FanSided will round up some of the most pie-in-the-sky gossip. Will it be Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Celtic? Paul Pogba back to Juventus? Ronaldinho out of retirement to play in MLS?

It’s getting hard to find five properly dumb transfer rumors. For the sake of not watering down this list too much, here are the four dumbest rumors this week.

1. Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona

This rumor is stupid because of how tedious it is. This transfer has been “on the verge of happening” or “within days of completion” for weeks now, it seems. Sure, it is actually pretty likely that Coutinho moves to Spain, but can’t the clubs just get it over with? Drawn-out transfer sagas that stretch beyond the beginning of the season always cast a dark cloud over teams.

The gossip saying that Liverpool and Barca have secret deals worked out, or that Coutinho is faking an injury to stay out of the Reds’ lineup, make this even dumber. This is not a thrilling international transfer spectacle. Coutinho is not Neymar, and this has been going on for far too long to be interesting anymore.

This story needs to be wrapped up quickly, so that we can all move on with our lives. The only thing the Coutinho transfer has given us is another (connected) dumb rumor…