A hunched player sits on a tunnel bench while six megaphones of growing size sit in a row beside him and two teammates walk toward the pitch.

Paper TalkThe High Road Herald

Porro Hamstring News Repeated By Six Outlets Before Nine, Each Adding A Bigger Word

Philippa Crane · Media Editor10 October · Reading time: one pint

Roberto De Zerbi confirmed at his Friday press conference that Van Hecke and Van de Ven are available for Manchester United and that Pedro Porro is out with a hamstring injury, and the Herald counted six versions by 8.40am on Saturday.

A Tottenham man seated at a kitchen table has now read that Pedro Porro will miss the trip to Old Trafford six times, and reports that the hamstring has not changed.

The Herald monitored his phone between 6.50am and 8.40am on Saturday. Every version traced back to the same Friday press conference, at which Roberto De Zerbi said Jan Paul van Hecke and Micky van de Ven were available, and that Porro was not.

The first version said, in plain terms, that the two centre-backs were available. By the second, this had become a boost. By the third it was a double boost, which the Herald understands is not a different quantity of defenders.

It says boost in this one. The other one said available. Somebody has been told something.

Porro's absence followed a similar path. It began as a hamstring problem with no firm return date, became a blow at the fourth website, and arrived at the fifth as a right-back crisis. No replacement was named in any of them, including the sixth, which described the situation as a selection headache.

The Herald can confirm that no fact was added at any stage. Kick-off remained 5:30pm. Mykhailo Mudryk remained unavailable. Dejan Kulusevski remained a man who will travel with the squad.

By the sixth version the man had stopped reading the headline and begun checking only whether the adjective had changed. It had, slightly.

He has put the toast back under the grill.

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Kitchen Table Receives Tottenham Profit Warning From Four Outlets And Is Asked To Brace Itself

Tottenham's board has issued a profit warning, with Vinai Venkatesham citing rising costs and two 17th-place finishes, and the same facts have since appeared in four places.

A Tottenham household was this morning in receipt of the club's profit warning from four separate sources, each of which reported the same facts and each of which found them slightly more serious than the last.

The first outlet, read at 7:10am, described the position as a warning. It said costs were rising because of investment in the men's team, that back-to-back 17th-place finishes and no European football had hit revenue, and that Vinai Venkatesham had set this out at the Fan Advisory Board. It was calm and gave the figures.

The second, at 7:35am, called it a financial warning and moved the Fan Advisory Board to the third paragraph. The squad-cost limits remained in place, at 85% of revenue in the Premier League and 70% under UEFA's rules, although the second site felt they were tightening.

By the third outlet, at 8:00am, the matter had become alarm. It was understood that the board was monitoring the situation. The Herald was unable to establish who was understood to be understanding it, or what the board was monitoring, other than the situation.

It said concern on the first one. Now it's a crisis. Nothing's happened in between, I've been sat here the whole time.

The fourth outlet, a podcast transcript, described the club as being in full financial meltdown and quoted no one. It contained every sentence from the first outlet, in a different order, followed by a sentence reading "and that is a big problem." Commercial income, including concerts and other stadium events, was mentioned once, near the end, with a question mark.

A Herald audit found that no fact appeared in the fourth outlet that was absent from the first, and that the household had paid for none of them. The toast went cold at the third.

The man has since read the first one again.

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