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Poor Tim Sherwood can't even stay clear of rumors about who's going to replace him when his team is in excellent form. The London Evening Standard is reporting that Italy boss Cesare Prandelli is interested in taking over at Tottenham Hotspur after the World Cup if the position is available. They claim that he's keen on working in the Premier League and make note of his good relationship with Franco Baldini.
However, the report is curious because of the lack of any kind of sourcing. Not only does it feature no quotes from Prandelli or anyone claiming to be close to Prandelli, but it has no citation of other media outlets or any sources. They simply use phrases like "it is thought" or "it is believed".
Is it possible that the Evening Standard has some decent original information and has just chosen a less than terrific way to present it? Yes, but it's more likely that they're framing a story around other rumors that are circulating on the internet. And those mostly originated from a story that no longer exists.
Over the weekend, rags less respectable than the Evening Standard and rumor-mongering websites ran a similar Prandelli story based on a report at Italian outlet La Reppublica. Except that report was deleted shortly after it was published and has not been put back up.
So all of this stuff appears to be coming from an original story that does not exist, but the sites citing the La Reppublica report didn't pull their posts after the original was deleted. Even if those follow-up stories on English-language sites were pulled, it wouldn't delete the rumor from the consciousness of people or the internet in general, because as we all know, the internet is forever.
This could be A Thing in the future, but for now you should treat it as Not A Thing.
