The Echo is an interesting beast. They're rarely, if ever, first on the scene with any Everton news. But they're normally fairly accurate when they tell us we're not actually signing someone who we've been heavily linked with nationally.
For example, all the way through the Zaha hysteria last summer they were pretty resolute that we weren't in for him. And it's been a similar story with other such non-transfers in the past too (eg Reguilion etc).
The problem is though, the paper is skint and operates massively on and revenue, meaning it has to also play the clickbait game. So if like me you follow things on NewsNow, you'll see several Echo headlines through the day relating to, for example, Zaha last summer. All of this will be click-baity rehashing of stories from other outlets. The report will state that "it's been reported" but it will be a Echo article in its own right, albeit not written by Phil K.
While behind the scenes PK is probably pressing his club sources for comment and then eventually he'll come out and say that what his own paper has been click baiting the living daylights out of is actually based on reports that are...yep...."wide of the mark".
So whilst they have, I think, some decent journos who probably have a bit of an inside track on some stuff, they've kind of destroyed their own credibility in order to stay afloat.
Worth saying btw that the Echo have NOT quashed the Allan or Doucoure rumours and it's interesting that they are backing up the James Rodriguez link too, although pointing out how hard it will be to get done.
As an aside, the Echo also not helped by the fact that their website is actually THE WORST IN THE WHOLE WORLD EVER. It's an absolute minefield to navigate as they've sold every available pixel to ads which are often clunky and a pain in the backside to scroll past or click off.
Very unpleasant to use.
