Mathys Tel Napoli Link Is Rewritten By Five Sites Until Ideal Target Becomes Perfect Marriage
Philippa Crane · Media Editor · Reading time: one pint
Italian outlet Area Napoli reports that Napoli see Mathys Tel as a winter option, and five English websites have since repeated it, adding no information and a fourth adjective.
A Tottenham man at a kitchen table in the north of the borough has this morning read the same story about Mathys Tel five times, and has been told on each occasion that it is bigger than before.
The story originates with Area Napoli, which reports that Napoli have identified Tel as a possible option for the winter window. The Italian outlet is understood to have described him as the ideal target due to his extreme tactical versatility. That is the whole of it.
The first English website to carry the claim reproduced it faithfully, with the word reportedly attached. The Herald considers this the high point of the exercise.
By the second website, ideal target had become a perfect fit. By the third, the interest was growing. By the fourth, Napoli were said to be plotting. The fifth, which the man read last and with the most toast, called it a dream signing, though nobody in the story had dreamed anything.
It says they've got a plan. It says it in five places now, so it must be true.
No outlet added a fee, a date, a conversation or a source in Naples. Each did helpfully mention that Tel was an unused substitute against Manchester United and scored a hat-trick for France Under-21 against Switzerland, both of which were already known and neither of which concerns Napoli.
The Herald notes that the club is reported to have no immediate plans to sanction an exit, a sentence that appeared low down on all five pages and was left there.
The man has now closed the fifth tab and opened the first again, in case it has grown.
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