Manchester United's social media has been all a buzz overnight with claims about Andrea Berta being closer to a job at the club. The Atletico Madrid sporting director has been heavily linked with a Manchester United role for a couple of months, and his relationship to Jose Mourinho held aloft as the reason.

The gist of it all has been that Jose Mourinho rides into town and Berta follows him, with the pair then working with Mendes on transfers. Some of the sources have been reliable, but that doesn't mean the information being passed to them is watertight, and if it's true Manchester United have been hesitant over Mourinho then it surely has to be believed they'd be even more hesitant to hand over the keys of the operation to Jose, Jorge and Andrea.

Italy's Tuttomercatoweb said on Thursday evening: 'Con Andrea Berta sempre più vicino al Manchester United, secondo quanto riporta TodoMercadoWeb.com un altro italiano potrebbe prendere il suo posto all'Atletico Madrid. Parliamo dell'ex direttore tecnico dell'Inter Marco Branca.'

That was it. Of course that's in Italian, but the story was: With Andrea Berta always closer to Manchester United, according to Todomercadoweb reports another Italian could take his place at Atletico. We're talking about the former Inter technical director Marco Branca.

Tuttomercatoweb had clearly relied on their Spanish sister website, but their claim had been a little different, saying Branca was a possibility if Berta went to Manchester United. There was nothing about it being closer, the emphasis very much on IF. 

The mainstream Spanish media don't appear to be looking at a quick Berta exit right now, with Marca explaining yesterday he's deep in work on Atletico transfers, and not even mentioning Manchester United.

It remains to be seen what will happen with Berta but the insinuation of an update from Tuttomercatoweb doesn't stand up to much scrutiny.