Fabrizio Romano

Giggsyking

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He was accused of being a tap in merchant, but I really admire his patience. He is a very good journalist.
 

vulmik

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Haters will hate, but he is the best in the business. His work ethic is ridiculous.
 

kaku06

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Interesting listening. Bruno from sporting to manutd changed his life. Of course, we all know how much attention and traction united gets.
 

Annihilate Now!

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I think fair play to the bloke, man worked pretty hard to come from basically nowhere to being one, if not THE most reliable source of transfer news on the planet.

He saw a gap in the market and went for it, fair play.
 

AltiUn

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He's the undisputed best universal source for transfer season, anyone doubting him at this point just comes across as weirdly bitter.
 

Rooney in Paris

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I find it difficult to understand what should be admired in all this.

You're talking about a guy breaking stuff a few hours before it's officially confirmed by a club anyway. It's not ground-breaking, it's barely news worthy. It's not journalistic investigation into anything related to the sporting side or business side of football. It's mundane, at best.

But then, I've never understood people's fascination with transfer season or muppetry, so I guess it's me.
 

saivet

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The number of transfers he covers is quite astounding really. He's covers so many transfers he's effectively an extremely accurate aggregator, while also having plenty of exclusives too. He doesn't do long form or in depth articles but he's mastered the social media game of short form transfer content in tweets or videos.
 

RedRonaldo

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Let's be honest we all wait for his here we go for confirmation of any players transfers.
 

theballisround

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I find it difficult to understand what should be admired in all this.

You're talking about a guy breaking stuff a few hours before it's officially confirmed by a club anyway. It's not ground-breaking, it's barely news worthy. It's not journalistic investigation into anything related to the sporting side or business side of football. It's mundane, at best.

But then, I've never understood people's fascination with transfer season or muppetry, so I guess it's me.
That's a hater opinion right there from the boy scout.
 

Born2Lose

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I think it's pretty obvious at this point he's a funnel for agents.
 

King7Eric

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Fair play to him on the Amrabat story among many others. He constantly said Utd will go for him and didn't change his tune despite no British journo repeating it for months.

He's gotten a few calls wrong but given the nature of the business, it is inevitable. Foolish to believe he isn't reliable. Nothing is official until it is announced by the club, but confirmation from him is a pretty good barometer.
 

red.knight

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Guy's a real legend. The amount of dedication and commitment he shows in his job is incredible. He established himself as the most reliable source in football transfer industry. By far, the best football journalist in the world for transfer news. He is what all journalists should aspire to be. 'Here We Go!' is the sign of reliable journalism.
 

pcaming

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I find it difficult to understand what should be admired in all this.

You're talking about a guy breaking stuff a few hours before it's officially confirmed by a club anyway. It's not ground-breaking, it's barely news worthy. It's not journalistic investigation into anything related to the sporting side or business side of football. It's mundane, at best.

But then, I've never understood people's fascination with transfer season or muppetry, so I guess it's me.
A few hours is everything in that line of work. You may not appreciate it, but I wouldn't say it's mundane. He probably gets a lot of false leads directly from players/agents, so I am sure some level of research is being done.

Everyone does not need to be an award-winning Reuters/AP journalist. He's found a niche that millions of people enjoy, good on him.
 

SilentWitness

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Feels really uneasy and weird that players DM him about stuff.
 

MadMike

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I think it's pretty obvious at this point he's a funnel for agents.
Sort of yes. But he is more reliable than someone who just repeats what agents tell him. Agents also bullshit to create hubbub but it seems Romano also cross-references his sources and he rarely indulges into posting what one source alone tells him.

And like @vulmik said he kinda made this happen with his crazy work ethic (to an unhealthy point perhaps). I remember last summer he posted screenshots of his iphone usage from the final days of the transfer window and the man was on the phone for an average of 20hrs a day for a week.
 
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Wonder Pigeon

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Just a mouth with a catchphrase and his rise says more about modern football fans and their obsession with transfers than anything about his actual skills as a journalist.
 

BluesJr

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Says a lot about your knowledge if you don’t rate him.
 

massey

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I was In the tap in merchant camp before mainly due to probably being frustrated with the topsy turvy nature of united and the ever conflicting reports on our club and transfers but tbh when ever something close does come to fruition it's him you generally look for with confirmation and as a football fan of any club you have to admire his workrate and dedication to covering so much news.
 

UnrelatedPsuedo

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Created a product that nobody wanted or needed.

Calling him a journalist is galling. He’s a gossip columnist and a bit of a snake. Operates in a mucky space in the sport that we’d all be better off without. Manipulation of clubs and players for no positive end goal.

Modern fans are so weird.
 

Dorris

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Says a lot about your knowledge if you don’t rate him.
I think it says a lot about someone’s intelligence if they think he has the inside track on every transfer in European football. He’s clearly got contacts and gets some good exclusives, but there’s obviously a lot of aggregation going on from lessor known journalists and people just assume it’s all from him. 99% of his posts are just rehashes and it becomes very boring very quickly.

Ornstein for me is a lot better. Seems to get more exclusives and when he tweets it’s with actual news rather than going over the same piece of information with different wording like Romano does. When I see Ornstein pop up on my feed I immediately take notice as I know it’ll be good informative info, I almost roll my eyes when I see Romano.
 

V.O.

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Says a lot about your knowledge if you don’t rate him.
Imagine trying to proclaim superiority because you like some bloke on twitter more than other people might. :lol:

People who have to turn everything into fecking console wars are so weird, man.
 

cafecillos

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I don't know how reliable he truly is or isn't, but I find his rephrasing abilities to be excellent considering English is probably not his first language. Other than that, his catchphrase routine is pure cringe, and the fact that thousands of grown-ass men love it is deeply embarrassing.
 

BluesJr

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Imagine trying to proclaim superiority because you like some bloke on twitter more than other people might. :lol:

People who have to turn everything into fecking console wars are so weird, man.
It's all fun and games. Don't take things too seriously.
 

flappyjay

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A few hours is everything in that line of work. You may not appreciate it, but I wouldn't say it's mundane. He probably gets a lot of false leads directly from players/agents, so I am sure some level of research is being done.

Everyone does not need to be an award-winning Reuters/AP journalist. He's found a niche that millions of people enjoy, good on him.
For 4 months (summer window and Jan window) out of the year millions of transfer muppets camp out in his twitter account.
 

Rooney in Paris

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You’ve never understood why fans are excited about seeing what players their clubs are signing?
I understand that, of course. I don't understand the obsession with everything that comes before, the ranking of sources, the rumours... At the end of the day, the club will sign who they will sign, and that's what you get excited about. Not a rumour.
 

Rooney in Paris

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A few hours is everything in that line of work. You may not appreciate it, but I wouldn't say it's mundane. He probably gets a lot of false leads directly from players/agents, so I am sure some level of research is being done.

Everyone does not need to be an award-winning Reuters/AP journalist. He's found a niche that millions of people enjoy, good on him.
Those few hours are everything... in what sense? In getting more likes and retweets? Cos it certainly has no incidence on the clubs' business and their transfers. By the time he announces it, the transfer is done, he has no bearing on anything. He's just a glorified mouthpiece.
 

Cassidy

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Maybe people will stop hating on him now, he's a machine and is doing a really good job
 

Cassidy

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Ornstein also has a higher journalistic standard with sourcing as he works for a news website. Romano is a freelancer.
Ornstein also mainly covers the PL, Romano is covering transfers across Europe.
 

VP89

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Created a product that nobody wanted or needed.

Calling him a journalist is galling. He’s a gossip columnist and a bit of a snake. Operates in a mucky space in the sport that we’d all be better off without. Manipulation of clubs and players for no positive end goal.

Modern fans are so weird.
Do you know what gossip is?
 

Cassidy

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Created a product that nobody wanted or needed.

Calling him a journalist is galling. He’s a gossip columnist and a bit of a snake. Operates in a mucky space in the sport that we’d all be better off without. Manipulation of clubs and players for no positive end goal.

Modern fans are so weird.
Makes zero sense, if nobody wanted or needed it, he would not be popular
 

VP89

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Those few hours are everything... in what sense? In getting more likes and retweets? Cos it certainly has no incidence on the clubs' business and their transfers. By the time he announces it, the transfer is done, he has no bearing on anything. He's just a glorified mouthpiece.
It means you can risk losing big pieces of information and be out the loop if you turn away for a few hours