We all know that when they quote unspecified "friends of" or "sources close to" a player, it's likely to have no real source beyond the hack that dreamt it up. But some of us (me included), when we read a player being quoted directly, assume naively that they're truly the words of the person in question.
After all, we think, why would the hacks ever bother to cover themselves by claiming indirect sources, if they can get away with a straight lie?

Seems the truth is: they just mix it up to keep us swallowing it.

Ok, I'll get to the point. In the News of the World from the Sunday just gone (19th December), their regular "Celebrity fan Q&A" column featured well-known comedian, actor, and Arsenal supporter Alan Davies, answering questions about being an Arsenal fan.

Or did it?

Alan has been in touch with ArseWeb, wanting to put the record straight.

The column, it turns out, had nothing to do with Alan whatsoever. Although it carried his name and picture, to his knowledge no attempt was made to contact him at all.

Ok, so you're making up an article like that... wouldn't you at least try to make it realistic, perhaps by finding articles where Alan has previously talked about his Goonerdom? No, even that was too much trouble. He's talked before about his first match, for example, attended at the age of 5. But they have him supporting the Gunners from age 7. Their Alan says, "it was a school thing". Real Alan says, "eh?"

In the article, Alan's "most memorable match" was said to be the recent 3-2 win at Stamford Bridge. Alan actually has a better memory than that, and without hesitation cites the 1987 League Cup semi-final replay win over Tottenham (sorry, too long ago for an ArseWeb report to link to!).

Asked for best ever player, fake Alan mentions Cliff Bastin and Ian Wright (imaginatively, looking at a list of our top scorers). Real Alan, like many Gooners, plumps for Liam Brady.

Asked who he'd most like us to sign, fake Alan comes up with a bizarre answer involving a "6 million dollar man" project combining parts of Ginola, Beckham, Dion Dublin, Jamie Redknapp, and Ian Wright! "No mention of Ronaldo!" real Alan remarks.

But most outrageously: when asked if he thought Patrick Vieira's punishment for spitting at Neil Ruddock was too harsh, fake Alan says "no, I think it was fair enough" and goes on to say stuff about "not dishing it out if you can't take it".

Understandably, this is the one that's really bugged Alan, whose actual belief is that Paddy hasn't been treated fairly by anyone outside Highbury since he first arrived. Not content with merely slagging our players off, they're now resorting to making up stuff about the fans slagging them off too.

So next time you read that Marc Overmars is leaving us, or that Kanu "snubbed" Arsenal's Xmas dinner, you know what to think. And hopefully some of the players will get wind of this too, and know what to think when journalists tell them that Arsenal fans are booing them and so on.

Sometimes they get lucky, but you know what they say about monkeys and typewriters....