Have Spurs signed Turkish International midfielder on a free transfer?

There's still a month to go in the Premier League season, but transfer rumor season has no beginning or end. It's just an endless cycle of bad rumors, hints, whispers, tapping up, and agent strategies. Of course, being Tottenham Hotspur supporters, we get linked to approximately everyone under the Sun no matter the time of the year. Sometimes those rumors get us excited! Sometimes, they're about as boring as James Milner. Then, of course, we have our #BatCountry rumors.

Today's rumor falls squarely in the third category because it's as dumb as is it baseless. Let's take a trip down the rabbit hole again.

Our dear friends over at The Metro are reporting that Spurs aren't only looking at 30-year-old Fenerbahçe Midfielder Mehmet Topal, but they've even gone so far as to sign him to a deal in principle on a free transfer. If this seems as sudden as it is random, you aren't the only one thinking this. So where did this rumor surface from? Let's look at the article:

The Turkey international was the subject of a failed January transfer window bid from Spurs earlier this season, but reports now suggest the club have got their man.

Topal, 30, is an experienced performer, having shone in his native Turkey and during a two-year spell in Spain with Valencia.

According to Fanatik, his next adventure will be in England should he formally accept a contract offer to move to White Hart Lane this summer.

Probing the interwebs for that failed January transfer yields pretty much nothing except a failed 6m Euro deal for Topal....back in August that was also a baseless rumor.

This rumor is coming from Fanatik, which is a Turkish site that is about on par with the Daily Mail, so a truckload of salt would be good right about now. The Fanatik article states about the same as Metro's article:

Fenerbahçe’nin orta sahadaki yıldızı Mehmet Topal’ın yeni adresi büyük ölçüde netleşti. Mayıs ayında sözleşmesi sona erecek olan milli futbolcu, kariyerini İngiltere’de sürdürmeye hazırlanıyor.

Sezon başı tecrübeli futbolcuyu iki kez isteyen Tottenham Kulübü, bu kez Mehmet Topal’ı bonservis bedeli olmadan kadrosuna katacak. Uzun süredir Fenerbahçe’den görüşme daveti bekleyen ancak bir türlü masaya oturamayan yıldız futbolcu için Londra ekibi yeniden devreye girdi. Uzun bir süredir Mehmet Topal’ı listesinde tutan İngilizler, milli futbolcunun kapısını bir kez daha çaldı. Sarı-lacivertli oyuncu yapılan teklifi prensipte kabul etti. Mehmet Topal kesin kararını vermek için dört yıl formasını giydiği Fenerbahçe ile yapacağı görüşmeyi bekleyecek. Sarı-lacivertli kulüple anlaşamaması durumunda gelecek sezon Tottenham forması giyecek.

Thankfully, I have a good friend who hails from Turkey and was able to fully translate this without the use of Google's hit-and-miss translator. The simplified version of the original story is that Topal has agreed in principle to a deal with Spurs but is still waiting to see if Fenerbahçe will offer him a new deal. Stop me if you've heard this story before.

As for Topal himself, he's a good defensive midfielder who had a successful two year stint with Valencia a few years back, but as I said before, he's 30 years old and doesn't exactly fit the profile of player that the club has been hunting in the last couple of years. We can all agree that we need cover in the pivot for Eric Dier, but I strongly believe that Topal is not the guy Pochettino has in mind.

Basically, this is as #BatCountry as it gets. We have no quotations from a player, agent, manager, or club. These are unverified reports that suddenly appeared with no warning other than another baseless rumor from back in the summer that barely anyone noticed. If this rumor is anything, it's Topal's agent drumming up talk to get his client more money.