How many stories can the different media sources make out of one quote ? The answer is seemingly endless as a Liverpool legend gets more headlines in one day than when he played.
The Liverpool Legend in question is Alan Kennedy and i should point out straight away that he is not being criticised here, far from it, his record is impeccable, over 500 League games in his career including well over half that number for Liverpool and 5 League titles, 4 league cups and 2 European Cups (Plus the winning goal in 1981 and the winner in the penalty shoot out in 1984) won in a career that he can justly be proud of and quite rightly marks him out as a Liverpool legend.
But he was very much the unsung hero of a team that had the likes of Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness as its stars.
So when Kennedy in a small interview with the Liverpool Daily Echo mentioned that with Liverpool's lack of cover at right back that he thought they should bring Nathaniel Clyne in, if you read the article is a very short and innocuous quote , you would find it incredible how many headlines that you can make out of a few short sentences.
European Cup winner urges Liverpool to sign Manchester United target
Liverpool legend: Why Brendan Rodgers MUST sign Man Utd target Nathaniel Clyne
Clyne Must Be Signed As A Priority, Insists Liverpool Legend
Liverpool legend suggests who should be club's transfer priority
Liverpool must sign Nathaniel Clyne this summer, insists Kop legend Alan Kennedy
Just five headlines as the media went mad in suddenly finding Alan Kennedy the wisest man in football and the man they called barney Rubble on the Kop because he had a face that launched a thousand ships, suddenly became the face that launched a thousand quips.
Also on the Echo website are several other quotes from ex players about other Liverpool transfer targets, but these don't seem to have attracted the imagination of the media has Nathaniel Clyne has done.
So why are the media so keen to stir things up about a possible Clyne move to Liverpool ? why is it of such interest to them to keep putting out nothing headlines, Alan Kennedy is not a former player with a high profile, he was merely a former Liverpool full back being asked about a potential full back signing.
This is the absurdity of the transfer market today in the media, how many times do we see headlines assuring us that within a matter of hours a player is going to join such and such club, only for that deadline to pass and weeks later the player in question joins a completely different side.
The answer is that managers and agents and in some cases players use favoured media contacts to do their dirty work in the media to unsettle players.
We saw that last year with the way that Brendan Rodgers conducted his attempts to get firstly Adam Lallana and then Dejan Lovren, the latter famously quoting that his head was already in Liverpool despite no official approaches already having been made.
Of course the media is driven by the fans desires to read headlines about their club, or to be more accurate the good ones and that fuels the fire.
But the reality is their is something a little more sinister in the way the media have picked up on this story, it smacks of last summer when the Liverpool manager showed the World how he operates and a series of reported derisory bids from Rodgers for Clyne does nothing to suggest his methods have changed. Ironic since his prized asset Raheem Sterling is being chased in the same way although many Liverpool fans cannot see the irony in this and the way Southampton Football Club has had its players targeted by Rodgers.
Thats the way of the World Im afraid and i have to say that it is rather sad that many of today's football fans will now know Alan Kennedy, not for his European Cup winning goal against Real Madrid in Paris in 1981 or that penalty shoot out in Rome, but for an innocuous comment about a transfer target.