A tiny figure in a dark coat shouts instructions across a giant breakfast table, where an enormous egg in an eggcup towers over small players on a crumb-covered pitch.

Paper TalkThe High Road Herald

Espart Scouting Claim Climbs From Scouted To Targeted By Giants Across One Kitchen Table Before Nine

Philippa Crane · Media Editor18 October · Reading time: one pint

CaughtOffside reports that Tottenham and Arsenal have scouted Barcelona full-back Xavi Espart, 19, whose contract runs to June 2030 and carries a release clause of more than €100m.

A Tottenham man had read the same report about Barcelona full-back Xavi Espart four times by 8.20am, and can confirm that it has not changed, although it has become louder.

The original, published by CaughtOffside, states that Tottenham and Arsenal have scouted the 19-year-old and compiled detailed reports this season. Aston Villa, Borussia Dortmund and Juventus are also following his progress.

The first website to repeat it said the clubs had scouted him. The second said they were keeping tabs. By the third, on a tablet propped against the marmalade, Spurs were monitoring closely and Arsenal had been upgraded to "Premier League giants".

It said scouted on my phone and targeted on the laptop. I've had to put the laptop in the other room.

The Herald has compared all four pieces line by line. Each contains the same single fee: a release clause of more than €100m, with Barcelona understood to want in the region of €40m to €50m plus bonuses. No piece contains a second source, a fresh figure or a quote.

A fifth website, read aloud over the last of the toast, described the matter as a developing race. At the time of going to press the race has five named clubs, none of which has entered it.

The man has since put the kettle on again and reopened the first report, in case it has been updated.

It had not been updated.

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A tiny fan in a white shirt, seen from behind, shouts into an enormous megaphone outside a stadium at dusk while a distant silhouetted figure sits at a bare press table.

Paper TalkThe High Road Herald

De Zerbi Blunt On Richarlison Future, So Supporter Outside Stadium Answers Everyone In One Word

Philippa Crane · Media Editor18 October · Reading time: one pint

Sky Sports reports that Roberto De Zerbi gave a blunt response when asked about Richarlison's future at Tottenham, and a supporter at the closed stadium gates has not read beyond the headline.

Roberto De Zerbi gave a blunt response when asked about Richarlison's future at Tottenham, according to Sky Sports, and a supporter outside the stadium has taken the point to heart.

The man, who attended the ground on a non-match day for reasons he did not volunteer, has read the headline, in which the word BLUNT appears in capital letters. The Herald understands this to be the whole of his research.

He has since answered a passing postman, a steward on a tea break and a pigeon in single words. The pigeon did not press him.

It says blunt. Blunt means short. You don't need the rest of it.

Our correspondent asked him what De Zerbi had actually said. The supporter replied that it was in the article. Asked whether he had read the article, he said "No."

The steward, an invented but entirely plausible one, reported that the man had been brief for forty minutes, and that a question about the weather had received the answer "Wet."

Asked about Richarlison's future, he said "Hmm" and looked at the gate. He declined to elaborate, on the grounds that blunt men do not elaborate, and the Herald notes that this is broadly where elaboration ends.

Yes. No. Possibly. That's all you'll get from me.

He then went home for lunch.

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