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If you woke up this morning, checked the BBC Gossip column and got all super excited about the thought of Radja Nainggolan being ‘close’ to Manchester United, word of advice: don’t.

If you’re not familiar with us, welcome to Sport Witness.

The aim of our website is to sniff out the remotest glimmer of hope fans have about a transfer, look into it and, 96.5% of the time, crush their dreams as we all laugh diabolically at our desks because we have no souls.

 

At least, that’s what people seem to think we do.

Looking at the BBC Gossip column on Monday, there is indeed a story about Manchester United and Radja Nainggolan in Il Tempo, but it’s from Saturday.

The story, which has already been picked up by the vast majority of British newspapers, explains that José Mourinho, who’s currently on holiday, allegedly rang the Belgian midfielder to offer him a contract at Manchester United worth €7.5m/year.

This, if you can believe the Special One is the one offering the contracts at Old Trafford, is an incredible offer, especially since Radja Nainggolan is currently requesting a contract of more than €5m/year from AS Roma.

However, what the BBC seem to have missed is that, in the very same article, it also says the Belgium midfielder turned down the offer because he wants to continue with the Serie A side.

And, just in case they hadn’t made that clear on Saturday, the very same newspaper had another article on Sunday where they make it very clear that he turned Mourinho down with a ‘no thank you’, dubbing Nainggolan the ‘symbol of loyalty’.

That’s our job done here.

Now we’re off to kick over sand castles some five-year-olds are really proud of before cutting all the strings from balloons at your nephew’s birthday party.

Oh, and we’ll blow out the candles on his cake too.