Joke Book- Gerrard’s fury over £5m fantasy transfer tale

Steven Gerrard has fumed over a far-fetched story that Everton are preparing a £5m for Nathan Patterson.

The teenage starlet hit the headlines last season when he picked up a Fixed Penalty for attending a House Party during Tier 4 restrictions. Fortunately the SFA delayed any punishment for two months, in stark contrast to their treatment of Celtic when Boli Bolingoli returned from Spain.

At this time of year there are multiple speculative transfer stories going round with one English based publisher deciding to go with the Patterson story.

Picking up on his post-match reaction at Ross County The Sun reports Gerrard saying:

Look, I’ve only just been told about this. It hasn’t been brought to my attention by anyone above me at the club. I’ll ask the question when I go back on the bus, but if you’re going to talk about Nathan Patterson you need to get real. £5m, wow. That’s definitely come out of a joke book, surely.

I don’t make the decisions in terms of when the right numbers are hit. All the players have got a price, we’ve said this so many times. We want to keep all our best players, especially our home grown and local ones.

There’s a big future here for him. He’s got to be patient and he’ll get game time and minutes. We’re delighted with Nathan, he’s not someone we’re looking to move on but every single person has got a number. But let me tell you now £5m is so far away it’s unreal.

Patterson has been restricted to one appearance in the Premier Sports Cup this season due to the mediocre form of James Tavernier.

The 19-year-old has started just three SPFL matches and made four appearances as a substitute. Some fans have already made comparisons with Danny Wilson and Young McCrorie.

With no interest in the usual suspects of Ryan Kent, Alfredo Morelos, Glen Kamara and Brandon Barker the Patterson speculation will fizzle along for a few days while transfer guru Ross Wilson tries to raise £20m to compensate for getting knocked out of the Champions League by Malmo.