A tiny supporter in a white shirt dribbles a ball between giant concrete bollards outside a stadium.

Match ReportThe High Road Herald

Supporter Practises 2.4 Dribbles Around Stadium Bollards As Report Says Kudus Faces Low Threshold Against Coventry

Desmond Parry · Chief Football Correspondent12 October · Reading time: one pint

A football website says Mohammed Kudus averages 2.4 dribbles per game from one start this season and must impress against Coventry on Matchday 7, and the forecourt contains twelve bollards.

A Tottenham man was observed on the forecourt of an empty stadium on Monday morning dribbling a size five ball around twelve bollards, in what he described as preparation for Matchday 7 against Coventry.

The exercise follows a published assessment that Mohammed Kudus, who has started one match this season, is averaging 2.4 dribbles and 1.4 fouls drawn per game. The man has adopted both figures as a personal target and has written them on his hand.

It's 2.4, so you do two, and then you've got to find the other bit. Nobody tells you about the other bit.

Our correspondent watched him complete two dribbles cleanly, then spend eleven minutes attempting 0.4 of a dribble beside a litter bin. The attempt was ruled incomplete by the man himself.

The report observes that Kudus's overall decisiveness was lacking against Manchester United, and that Spurs are still waiting for a first win of the season. The man has taken the first point to heart and has made no decision of any kind since arriving.

It adds that Savio is the best statistical dribbler in the Premier League, with around 4.5 per match. The man has noted the figure and says he will not be attempting it until the drizzle eases.

The piece concludes that there may be a low threshold for Roberto De Zerbi to choose a different lineup if Kudus does not seize the opportunity on Matchday 7. The man has interpreted the threshold as a physical one and has measured the kerb outside the main entrance at roughly four inches.

He has so far drawn one foul, from a pigeon, and will return on Thursday to work on the fractions.

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A small sleepless figure sits up in bed beneath three huge stacked blank sheets of paper and an oversized alarm clock.

Paper TalkThe High Road Herald

Householder Reads Monchi Sleep Remark On Roberto Fernandez Three Times And Is Kept Awake By It

Philippa Crane · Media Editor12 October · Reading time: one pint

Espanyol director of football Monchi told Sport he is not losing sleep over Tottenham's reported interest in Roberto Fernandez, whose release clause is €30m (£25.4m), and the remark has since appeared on at least three further screens.

A North London householder has read the same remark by Espanyol's director of football three times before eight o'clock and is understood to be no better informed than he was at the first reading.

Monchi told Sport that the club is not losing sleep over the possibility that Tottenham, among others, might pay Roberto Fernandez's €30m release clause. The Herald can confirm that this is the whole of the story.

The Herald has traced the remark through its subsequent journey. The first outlet reported it. The second outlet reported that the first outlet had reported it. The third added a photograph of the striker and the word monitoring.

By the fourth version, the director's remark had been described as relaxed, then unbothered, and finally, at a site the householder declines to name, as a message to Tottenham. The only new figure to appear along the way was £25.4m, which is €30m with the currency changed.

It says he's not losing sleep, so I've been lying awake working out what that means for January.

A second member of the household, who was buttering toast, said she had seen the same paragraph on her own phone at 6:40am and again on the bus, where it was developing.

The Herald notes that Chelsea and Brighton were also mentioned in each version, in the same order, and that the 3-1 win over Czechia and the six goals in seven matches were restated on every occasion, none of them any larger.

The householder has since put the phone face down beside the marmalade and has begun reading the jar.

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