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As the winter break approaches and the January transfer window with it, it's time to prepare for an ever-increasing tide of transfer rumors. Some will be legit, some will be bizarre, and some will be utterly made up. It's our job to parse through them and figure out which is which and make it easier for you to find your way through the storm.
Late last night, reports started to circulate that Rafa Benitez is interested in acquiring Liverpool defender Daniel Agger on loan for the rest of the season. This is something that makes sense for a lot of reasons: Agger had a lot of success under Benitez with the Merseyside club, and has been under-utilized with Liverpool this season. With Napoli's dire need in defense, there's a lot of reason to believe the legitimacy of this report.
When you dig past that surface level, though, it starts to fall apart. Agger has missed time with nicks and illness, and has had a hard time finding form this season as a result. Still, Brendan Rodgers has shown a willingness to give chances to find form and effectiveness, and on talent Agger is probably Liverpool's second-best defender after Mamadou Sakho. Add that to the fact that he was made vice-captain over the summer in large part to keep him out of the clutches of Barcelona, and there's not much reason to expect Liverpool to be especially interested in entertaining such an offer.
On top of all that, Agger loves Liverpool. I mean, really loves Liverpool. You know all the stories that have filtered out over the years about how much Hamsik loves Naples? Hamsik ain't got a thing on Agger's love for his adopted city. The Dane's passion for city and club goes so deep that he has multiple Liverpool tattoos mixed in amongst all the other ink on him, including "YNWA" on his knuckles, the acronym for the club's anthem "You'll Never Walk Alone". He got that tattoo during the middle of the Barcelona rumors last summer, as sort of a "relax, I'm staying put" message to the fanbase.
In other words, while it's an attractive idea, it's not likely to happen. Still, it means that Napoli appears to be on the right path towards making the moves they need to in order to get stronger down the stretch. It'll be interesting to see the end result of the changes to the squad come February 1st.