Nobody believes Melissa Reddy over ‘pure lies’ rumour claim

Liverpool journalist Melissa Reddy has published a story that claims the Nicolas Pepe transfer rumours aren’t true, so why doesn’t anyone believe her?

The Reds have been linked with Pepe a fair bit this window, but Reddy has published a story on ESPN in which club officials denounce the reports in the strongest possible terms.

Reddy wrote that Liverpool haven’t been in contact with Lille about the forward and that Michael Edwards even reached out to manager Christophe Galtier to tell him that he had no intention of bringing Pepe to Anfield.

As is standard, the journalist tweeted a link to her article and the reaction it got was very surprising – especially for a writer as reliable as Reddy.

Basically her mentions were full of people disputing the report and questioning why Liverpool would need to air a rejection of a transfer rumour, which they called ‘pure lies’, if there was nothing in it.

In another twist, especially for a platform and a time of the year that craves news on a near-religious level, accounts were calling for her to give it a rest. Yeah, let’s just ask a sports journalist to stop doing their job during the busiest time of the year shall we? Makes sense.

Pepe is understood to be waiting until the end of the African Cup of Nations before clarifying his future destination, wrote Reddy, and had previously sparked social media fire after liking a tweet.

It wouldn’t be a surprising if this deal never materialised. The asking price is massive for a player who won’t be an automatic starter, while Liverpool already have Divock Origi in the squad and he’s expected to be the versatile forward the club need.

Rhian Brewster, the highly rated starlet, has almost been promised more minutes and should play a part in the upcoming campaign.

That doesn’t leave much room for Pepe.