Manchester United’s target Erling Haaland’s father, former player Alf-Inge, has mocked reports he and his son travelled to Manchester to hold transfer talks with the Old Trafford side.

The 19-year-old was spotted boarding a plane in Stavanger, Norway on Friday morning, with newspaper Stavanger Aftenbladet claiming he was heading to Manchester.

Norwegian newspaper said it: “has sources telling them Braut Haaland and his farther Alf-Inge Haaland went to Manchester from Sola [airport] on Friday morning.”

United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, according to the Metro, was quick to play down the reports, saying he was probably just going on a Christmas holiday, and now Alf-Inge has responded on social media with a cheeky post of his own.

The former Leeds and Manchester City player shared a picture of son Erling looking at the departures board and poked fun at the Norwegian journalist who had made the initial claim.

Tagging him, Alf-Inge wrote: “Come on Stig Nilssen, have another go” along with a laughing face emoji. Aftenbladet had later changed their story to say that Erling – who is enjoying the Austrian league’s winter break – was actually heading to Copenhagen for a short break, though that destination did not appear on the departures board.

Solskjaer had immediately dismissed the reports that Haaland was due to arrive in Manchester and knows full well that you often need to fly via the UK from Norway to get to other places in Europe.

“I don’t think he’s en route here, to be fair, not through me anyway,” he said on Friday morning.

“You know I can’t comment on other teams’ players, I’ve said that many times and that’s just one of those things in this job you get speculation a lot of the time.

“I don’t think he is en route here. He is on a business holiday. You can’t fly anywhere from Stavanger. You need to go via here.”

The Norway striker has been targeted by giants across the whole continent after particularly catching the eye in the Champions League this term after scoring 28 goals in 22 matches in all competitions for Salzburg this season, with Solskjaer a keen admirer of his compatriot.

Arsenal have confirmed the appointment of Mikel Arteta as their new manager.

The former Gunners captain is leaving Manchester City as assistant manager to Pep Guardiola who had earlier in the day confirmed his compatriot’s switch during his press conference, stating that Arteta was in London to finalise his deal with Arsenal.

Guardiola said: “He’s in London and I think he’s close to finishing a deal with Arsenal.

“It’s almost done, yesterday he didn’t do training, today he didn’t do training, he’s moving to Arsenal. I don’t know the last details of the contract, but it’s there.”

Josh Kroenke, speaking on behalf of the Arsenal board and owners Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, said: “We’re delighted to be bringing Mikel back to Arsenal. He knows our expectations and those of our fans around the world are high and we are confident he can play a lead role in taking the club back to the levels we all demand.

“I also want to thank Freddie Ljungberg for skilfully guiding us through the last three weeks. He stepped up at short notice and has helped us through this difficult period with great professionalism.”

The former central midfielder has been long-term linked to the Arsenal job – he was reportedly in the running to replace Arsene Wenger in the summer of 2018. But Unai Emery surprisingly emerged as a successor to the Frenchman.

Reacting to his appointmet, Mikel Arteta stated it’s a huge honour to join the London club.

His words: “This is a huge honour. Arsenal is one of the biggest clubs in the world. We need to be competing for the top trophies in the game and that’s been made very clear to me in my discussions with Stan and Josh Kroenke, and the senior people from the club.

“We all know there is a lot of work to be done to achieve that but I am confident we’ll do it. I’m realistic enough to know it won’t happen overnight but the current squad has plenty of talent and there is a great pipeline of young players coming through from the academy.”