Caulker Top Half Remark Reaches Breakfast Table As Hope, Then Target, Then Bold Demand
Philippa Crane · Media Editor · Reading time: one pint
Steven Caulker told Sky Sports that a top-half Premier League finish would count as a success for Tottenham, who are bottom of the table without a win after five games, and the remark has since been published in several places at once.
A Tottenham season ticket holder read the same remark from Steven Caulker four times between the first slice of toast and the last, and reports that it grew on each occasion, although nobody had added anything to it.
The original item, published by Spurs Web, states that Caulker told Sky Sports a top-half finish would be a success for Tottenham, who sit bottom of the Premier League after five games without a win. That is the whole of the story.
The second website, encountered with the first cup of tea, said Caulker had lowered his expectations. The third, at the marmalade stage, called the remark a target. The fourth, read while the kettle was boiling again, described it as a demand.
It's got bigger every time I've opened it. By the fourth one he's practically issued an ultimatum.
The Herald has laid all four side by side on the table. Each contains the same quotation, the same league position and the same reference to Manchester United this weekend. No later version includes a single fact that was absent from the first.
Caulker's own word, for the record, was that a top-half finish will suffice. The word does not appear in versions two, three or four, and the Herald understands it was the only one doing any work.
By 8.15am the man had begun to describe the position as widely held, on the basis that he had now seen it in four places, all of them on the same phone.
The toast had gone cold before he reached the fifth.
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