Aston Villa transfer rumour meter: Gauging the latest scuttlebutt

January is coming, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop that. Get prepared for a barrage of transfer rumours about our beloved Aston Villa. Some of them will sound amazing, others will sound terrible, and all of them will fall somewhere on a scale of total BS to absolutely believable. We're gearing up to bring you the best transfer rumour coverage we can in the coming months, so you'll be seeing a few features pop up. You may remember the transfer rumour tracker that we did this summer. Well, that will be back in the next week or so, and it'll be your one-stop shop for any and all Aston Villa rumours.

But today, I'd like to introduce our new transfer rumour meter. Whenever we get a transfer story, we'll let you know how believable we think it is. There's a lot of bad information floating around out there at this time of year, and it stinks to get your hopes up over a poorly-sourced piece of drivel. Worse still is the rumour that comes about simply when lazy journalists connect the dots of logic and actually have no reason to believe the rumour.

So with every story, we will append an image like this:

If we'd had the meter last summer, that's the setting I would have put on every Hiroshi Kiyotake story that we wrote.

But there's something we'd like you to do, too. Let us know where you think the rumours are on the meter. After all, this is a pretty subjective call, and your opinion is just as valid as ours. So when you see the meter, jump in the comments and let us know what you think.

Happy transfer season, everyone. It's like the holidays, but far more aggravating!