A tiny faceless footballer stands in the foam of a giant pint glass while an oversized magnifying glass inspects a small sapling on a pub table.

Paper TalkThe High Road Herald

Lankshear Haaland Comparison Reaches Pub Quiz Chat, Which Tables Snobbery Motion And Corrects The Spelling

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

Spurs Web says Tottenham may have thrown away the next Erling Haaland in Will Lankshear, who scored his 11th of the season for Middlesbrough in a 2-2 draw with 10-man Coventry City, and the motion was tabled on a bus.

A pub quiz team's group chat reached a formal position on Will Lankshear shortly after 4.40pm on Sunday, following a Spurs Web article suggesting Tottenham may have thrown away the next Erling Haaland.

The chat, which has six members and one permanently muted, convened on the top deck of the 259 and was called to order by the member who owns the laminated answer sheets.

The Herald understands the article places Lankshear's 11 goals for Middlesbrough beside Haaland's 12, a figure that includes four in the Champions League, and notes that the two are the only players in the top four tiers of English football in double figures.

Eleven is basically twelve. I'm only saying what the maths is saying.

A second member then read aloud that Darren Bent had told talkSPORT it was snobbery, and the chat paused for a full nine seconds while the word was considered. A third member asked whether snobbery is the sort of thing a club can do on purpose.

The meeting was told that Spurs hold a matching right on Lankshear but no buy-back, according to TEAMtalk, and a forty-minute discussion followed on the difference between the two. It ended when the member with the answer sheets said it was a bit like the picture round.

The chat then recorded a unanimous thumbs-up on the motion, and one correction, to the spelling of Haaland, which had been typed with a single a.

The bus reached Archway before anyone could propose a second motion.

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A small palm-tree island sits on a football pitch, circled by four drones whose ribbons tangle into a knot, while a distant footballer in a white shirt watches from behind.

Paper TalkThe High Road Herald

Richarlison Island Video Grows From Dispute To Saga Across Four Websites And Is Still One Island

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

The Sun reports that Richarlison released a video about a private island at Angra dos Reis, saying he spent around R$ 10 million on it, and by breakfast the same facts had been published four times.

A Tottenham man sat down to breakfast on Monday and read that Richarlison had released a video about a private island. He then read it three more times, on three more websites, and the island did not change.

The original report, credited to James Graham of The Sun, states that the forward says he bought the island between 2020 and 2021 and spent around R$ 10 million on it. The island is at Angra dos Reis, on Rio de Janeiro's Green Coast. That is the whole of the news.

The Herald has tracked the item across the morning. At the first site it was a video. At the second it was a controversy. By the third it was yet another explosive off-field controversy, and the fourth described a dramatic escalation, a phrase that had by then been borrowed without return.

It's a different island at every site, the way they write it. I've checked the map. It's one island.

No outlet added a fact. The quotation about the paperwork appeared in all four, in the same order, with the same full stop after "nothing". One site placed it higher up and called it a bombshell.

The Herald understands that the Under-21 match against Cheltenham, the transfer request and Roberto De Zerbi's squad selection were each mentioned in every version, usually in the final paragraph, as a sort of garnish.

By half past eight the man had read the island piece four times in nine minutes, and had formed no view on the island beyond its location. He has asked that this be noted.

He has finished his toast and is reading it again.

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