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Paper TalkThe High Road Herald

Eleven Websites Repeat Ledley King Remark On Luka Vuskovic And Add Nothing Whatsoever To It

The original remark, in which Mr King says he did not get many chances to watch the player, survives in only four of the eleven reports.

A single remark by Ledley King to Hayters TV on the subject of Luka Vuskovic was repeated by eleven separate websites over the course of one morning, with no outlet adding a new fact and every outlet adding a stronger verb.

The Herald has examined the original. Mr King said he had not had many chances to watch the player, that he had seen the reports, and that people were raving about him. He described him as an exciting young player who looks confident.

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In the first report, Mr King 'thinks' the player will become a top player. By the third, he had 'backed' him. By the fifth he had 'tipped' him, and by the eighth he was understood to have 'issued a verdict'.

By the eleventh, the remark had become a 'message', although our correspondent could find nobody to whom it had been sent.

Each report contained the same three supporting facts: that the player had been named in the Bundesliga Team of the Season after a loan at Hamburg, that Brighton were said to be interested, and that Roberto De Zerbi would get to see him in pre-season. Each presented these in a different order, as though the order were the news.

A Tottenham man read all eleven in a supermarket car park on Monday, with the engine off and a phone propped against the dashboard. He had not yet gone in.

I thought the second one might have something in it, so I read the third. Then I had to check the others, didn't I.

It is understood that the man's conclusion, reached at around the ninth article, was that Mr King thought the player was good. This was also the conclusion available from the first.

He has not yet gone in.

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