On-field performance for The Gunners has dipped over the last few seasons but the club retains a massive fanbase who follow the club for news on transfers every single year.
YouTube fan content from channels like Arsenal Fan TV keeps the club’s audience really engaged with happenings at the London Colney base.
This article shall simply serve as an Arsenal guide for journalistic reliability, which will enable you as the reader to filter the true transfer stories from the false ones.
So here goes:
Arsenal transfer tier of reliability
Name | Media Outlet / Country | Tier Ranking | Reliability Rating |
---|---|---|---|
Official Club Source | www.arsenal.com | Tier 0 | ![]() |
David Ornstein | The Athletic | Tier 1 | ![]() |
Fabrizio Romano | Italy | Tier 1 | ![]() |
Charles Watts | Goal.com | Tier 1 | ![]() |
BBC Sport | United Kingdom | Tier 1 | ![]() |
AFC Bell | Twitter: @TheAFCBell | Tier 2 | ![]() |
Gianluca Di Marzio | Italy | Tier 2 | ![]() |
Amy Lawrence | The Athletic | Tier 2 | ![]() |
Chris Weatley | football.london | Tier 2 | ![]() |
Mohamed Bouhafsi | RMC Sport | Tier 2 | ![]() |
James MacNicholas | The Athletic | Tier 2 | ![]() |
The Guardian | United Kingdom | Tier 2 | ![]() |
The Athletic | United Kingdom | Tier 2 | ![]() |
James Olley | Evening Standard | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Mark Ogden | The Independent | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Alexis Bernard | Le10Sport | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Mark Irwin | The Sun | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Sam Dean | Daily Telegraph | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Simon Collings | Evening Standard | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Manu Lonjon | Eurosport | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Jeremy Wilson | Daily Telegraph | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Guillem Balague | Sky Sports / Freelance | Tier 3 | ![]() |
James Benge | CBS Sports | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Andy Burton | Sky Sports | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Raphael Honigstein | Germany | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Sami Mokbel | Daily Mail | Tier 3 | ![]() |
L'Equipe | France | Tier 3 | ![]() |
The Times | United Kingdom | Tier 3 | ![]() |
BILD | Germany | Tier 3 | ![]() |
The Independent | United Kingdom | Tier 3 | ![]() |
The Telegraph | United Kingdom | Tier 3 | ![]() |
El Confidencial | Spain | Tier 3 | ![]() |
Gianluca Di Marzio | Italy | Tier 3 | ![]() |
MARCA | Spain | Tier 4 | ![]() |
Sky Sports | United Kingdom | Tier 4 | ![]() |
AS | Spain | Tier 4 | ![]() |
Mundo Deportivo | Spain | Tier 4 | ![]() |
SPORT | Spain | Tier 4 | ![]() |
SportBild | Germany | Tier 4 | ![]() |
Kaveh Solhekol | Sky Sports | Tier 4 | ![]() |
Dharmesh Seth | Sky Sports | Tier 4 | ![]() |
John Cross | The Mirror | Tier 4 | ![]() |
football.london | United Kingdom | Tier 4 | ![]() |
Cadena SER | Spain | Tier 4 | ![]() |
Muzzy Ozcan | Spain | Tier 5 | ![]() |
Tancredi Palmeri | Italy | Tier 5 | ![]() |
AFC Horse | United Kingdom | Tier 5 | ![]() |
The Metro | United Kingdom | Tier 5 | ![]() |
The Sun | United Kingdom | Tier 5 | ![]() |
Daily Mail | United Kingdom | Tier 5 | ![]() |
The Mirror | United Kingdom | Tier 5 | ![]() |
AFCAMDEN | United Kingdom | Tier 5 | ![]() |
Geoff Arsenal | United Kingdom | Tier 5 | ![]() |
90min.com | United Kingdom | Tier 5 | ![]() |
Bleacher Report | USA | Tier 5 | ![]() |
Caught Offside | United Kingdom | Tier 5 | ![]() |
Joe.co.uk | United Kingdom | Tier 5 | ![]() |
Who is The AFC Bell?
Having come to the fore for Arsenal transfer news last summer, The AFC Bell has earned a spot as a tier 2 source for Arsenal transfer reliability.
According to Arsenal TSN, AFC Bell was a Twitter account which claimed that Thomas Partey would join Arsenal well before the summer transfer window of 2020.
The account also doubled down on its prediction when the Partey-to-Arsenal news quietened down as Atletico were rumoured to extend the Ghanaian’s contract for a few more years.
However, on the transfer deadline day of 2020, The AFC Bell was the first source to break the news of Arsenal activating Partey’s release clause.
In fact here’s a small tweet excerpt from David Ornstein where the Athletic reporter congratulates the account for breaking the news:
Is David Ornstein reliable?
Mr. Ornstein formerly worked for the BBC – 12 years as a sports journalist and correspondent at the organisation – but switched media allegiances as he moved over to The Athletic in October of 2019.
Even though his ties with the London side have grown more distant in the last few years, he is still among those at the pinnacle of dependable reporting for the club.
In fact in the past he has personally attested to taking the approach of “getting it right, rather than getting it first”, meaning that he verifies each piece of information he receives for accuracy before updating his followers and the general public.
Concluding offer
Now that you can see which journalists and media outlets are present under Arsenal’s classification, there’s something that I think would be of interest to you.
As you’re aware of the tier scale, you know that different journalists report on transfer news for different teams.
So, for example, Fabrizio Romano might rank in Tier 2 for AC Milan transfer news but performs less effectively when breaking news for a club like Manchester City with a Tier 3 ranking assigned to him.
What if you had a document that could provide you tier rankings for each one of Europe’s biggest clubs?
Well, there’s good news because we’ve got just the solution for you!
Have a look at our Transfer Tier of Reliability eBook which is the central guide piece to the current age of soccer transfer window speculation.
We’ve eliminated the painstaking hours of research for you by compiling a comprehensive Tier 1 to Tier 5 breakdown of the reliability of the world’s sports journalists and media outlets.
The teams included in this guide consist of the English Premier League’s traditional top six clubs, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Paris Saint Germain.
Go ahead and jump straight to checkout for this eBook here!
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