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Gazzetta dello Sport has a claim on Tuesday evening that raised an eyebrow or two at Sport Witness.

The grand old Italian newspaper state: ‘From Manchester, in fact, bounces the indiscretion that in the past hours the Reds Devils have focused their eyes on Malcom to strengthen their attack. And they would certainly have no problem in undoing the 40 million payment requested by Bordeaux.’

They credit this to the Manchester Evening News and Sky Sports, so we went on a little digging mission.

On Tuesday morning, Sky published the following: ‘Manchester United could bring in a pair of Ligue 1 players over the summer as they lead the race to sign Paris St Germain’s Marco Verratti and Bordeaux’s Malcom, despite keen interest from other top European clubs, according to the Manchester Evening News.’

This has spread across live blogs up and down the country, all credit the MEN or Sky.

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So off to the MEN, and there’s nothing on their own Manchester United live blog about Malcom today. But there is an article from Monday evening which is just a collection of betting odds on the two players. 

So what looks to be a perfectly innocent, incoming generating, MEN article for a bookmaker, has now spread across Europe and has Gazzetta suggesting Manchester United could push Inter Milan aside in a battle for Malcom.

French newspaper L’Equipe had an article today on the Bordeaux player’s future, and didn’t mention Manchester United in it.