Four faceless footballers in plain white shirts huddle around a giant cereal bowl on a pitch, with a spoon propped against it.

Paper TalkThe High Road Herald

Spurs Top Scorer Decline Is Read Out Over Cornflakes Four Times, Growing One Adjective Each Time

Philippa Crane · Media Editor15 October · Reading time: one pint

Spurs Web reports that Tottenham's top scorers across ten Premier League seasons show a decline, with three goals in six games the lowest return in the division and only Coventry worse on expected goals.

A Tottenham household has now heard the same finding four times before nine, each time with a more serious word attached, and none of them with a further goal.

The original item, published by Spurs Web, sets out the top three scorers in each of the last ten Premier League seasons. It records that Spurs have scored three goals in six games, the lowest return in the division, and that only Coventry are worse on expected goals.

It also notes that Dominic Solanke, Conor Gallagher and Jan Paul van Hecke lead the club's scorers this season with one goal each.

The Herald understands the first retelling reached the table at 7:40am, via a phone propped against the marmalade, and described the position as a glaring problem. By the second, over the kettle, it was a crisis. By the third, during the search for a clean spoon, it had become a collapse.

It says it is worrying. Then it says it is very worrying. It is the same table of numbers.

The fourth retelling, delivered with some ceremony from the hallway, was described as a verdict. Our correspondent checked each version against the first and found that the figures, the seasons and the three scorers were identical in all of them.

No outlet added a quote, a new statistic, or a single further goal. One did add a photograph of a graph.

The cereal has been finished and the phone has been put down.

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A giant snowball covered in six megaphones and a small golden sash rolls toward a lone footballer seen from behind on a sunny pitch.

Paper TalkThe High Road Herald

Alex Scott £100m January Report Passes Through Six Outlets And Gains One Adjective

Philippa Crane · Media Editor15 October · Reading time: one pint

Fabrizio Romano reports that Bournemouth are open to January proposals for Alex Scott but will only entertain bids around £100m, with Chelsea and Liverpool leading the race and Spurs not involved, and the household's toast was cold by the third retelling.

A Tottenham householder has read the same report on Alex Scott six times since seven o'clock, and can confirm that nothing in it has changed except the tone.

The report states that Bournemouth are open to proposals for the midfielder in January, but are likely to entertain only bids in the region of £100m. It is credited to Fabrizio Romano. Chelsea and Liverpool are named as the two clubs leading the race. Spurs, it adds, will not be getting involved.

The Herald followed the story through six outlets. At the first, Bournemouth were open to proposals. At the third they had taken a firm stance. By the sixth they were braced for an auction, a phrase that appears nowhere in the original.

It said a hundred million at the first one and it said a hundred million at the sixth. They've just got more confident about it.

Our correspondent examined all six for new information and found none. Each carried the fee, the January window, the two clubs and the line about Spurs. Two used a photograph of the player. One used the same photograph, cropped.

Every outlet also credited the story to another outlet, which credited it to the original, a chain the householder described as very well sourced on the strength of its length.

By the fifth reading a second pot of tea had been made. No one in the household has any intention of bidding £100m, and the story says as much in its final paragraph, which the householder has read aloud on each occasion.

I keep thinking the next one will say something.

He is now on site seven.

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