Thiago off to Bayern, say Spanish media - but it's unlikely to happen

Spanish radio station Cadena COPE have claimed that Thiago has decided to move to Bayern Munich, and could be announced tomorrow.

That has, predictably, sent Twitter into meltdown, but it's not all bad news. COPE are, of course, just one source, and are as likely to be wrong as anyone else - see, for example, 'Sport's repeated wrong reports on this subject all summer.

To make matters even more interesting, the radio station has had previous run-ins with Barcelona. Their loyalties very much lie with their rivals, Real Madrid, and were successfully sued recently after claiming that Barcelona had been doping players, based on a questionable source from Madrid. They're no friends of the Catalans, and the chance to claim that their beloved former manager was about to steal one of their best youngsters from them may have been too good to pass up.

They claim that Thiago will be accomodated by moving Javi Martinez to centre-back. The flaw in this argument is that Bayern would then have to move one of the best box-to-box midfielders in the game to defensive midfield. In addition, Thiago is still competing with Mario Gotze and Toni Kroos. It's barely any easier to break into than Barcelona's midfield. There's also the fact that Pep Guardiola has repeatedly insisted he wouldn't make a move for the player, and that there have been no reports in the German media.

In addition, COPE are hardly likely to be the best-placed to know what was going on. If this was a sudden U-turn from Sport, who will actually have sources at Barcelona, or a new report in Bild, then it would be time to start getting very worried. But for now, it's probably best not to overreact to the news.

Of course, it could well be true, but... let's just treat this about the same as we would if this was a report in the Daily Star, shall we?