A day after Barnsley's final training session, a clear but moderately grainy image surfaced online mid-morning, snapped outside a private terminal at Leeds Bradford Airport.
In it was Michael Sterling, suit jacket over his shoulder, sunglasses on, stepping onto a private jet with the Barnsley crest on the tail.
Madrid.
Or was it?
On any other day, it might have gathered thousands of likes like posts about the Misfits always did, as well as the usual memes, but the timing, with the Real Madrid offer still fresh, blew everything out of proportion.
Within minutes, the image was everywhere.
Cropped.
Zoomed.
Circled.
Captioned.
And everybody had something to say.
"He's gone."
"Adios Michael."
"No City game then?"
The comments piled up faster than most posts could manage in a year.
A day before the biggest game of the season, and already on a jet.
To a certain corner of the internet, that was enough.
The conclusion wrote itself.
