Tottenham are reportedly in for Brazilian international striker

Bat country knows no boundaries. It extends to the farthest reaches of football, especially when it's usually the same people that write about them. So, it will come as no shock to you that the Metro are behind this one, even though a Brazilian outlet is running with it too.

FOX Sports Brazil, off the heels of a report run by the Metro, are stating that Tottenham Hotspur are currently the front-runners for Corinthians striker Alexandre Pato.

Before we even get into the hypothetical "what if" scenarios about this transfer, this checks all the boxes for Bat Country:

• Original report is run by The Metro
• No quotes from anyone
• "Unnamed sources" and "Reportedly" are some favorite words for Bat Country articles.

We talked about this earlier in the window as a "What if?" article that ended up spiraling into a heated debate, but let's revisit this and figure out just what this would mean if there was an actual sliver of truth.

Pato, before his injuries, was a scary as hell striker. He had great pace and had a knack for being in the right place at the right time. He scored 51 goals in 117 appearances for AC Milan, and those numbers were definitely hindered by the start of his injury bug, which is a rather long list of various nagging bumps, knocks, sprains, and strains. Pato blamed his long list of injuries on the medical staff at AC Milan, but at some point you just have to shrug and say that a player is injury-prone. He managed to miss 74 matches during his time in Italy, so who knows how many goals he could have racked up if he had actually avoided.

Now, to be fair to Pato, he has had a clean bill of health since leaving Italy for Corinthians, though he has spent a bulk of his time on loan at São Paulo FC where he has scored 17 goals in 45 appearances. Corinthians' president, Roberto de Andrade, has gone on record to say that he wants to get rid of Pato, even going so far as to say that he "prays day and night" for a bidder to come along. Lazio was supposedly interested at some point to the tune of €9m, but that has fizzled out. However, it's hard to believe that a bid in the £5m-£7m range wouldn't get the job done if we were actually serious.

Pato's run of form in Brazil hasn't been bad, and as stated before, he's managed to stay injury free in Brazil. If he could continue to avoid that injury bug, would he be a good compliment to Harry Kane? Sure, but that long list of injuries is a gigantic red flag that makes me want to run the opposite direction. If this was Pato when he was at his best as a 20 year old, then sign me up.

Wrapping a nice neat bow on all of this, let's say this again: These rumors have no sources, no quotes, nothing. Digging through the Google universe shows no actual reports other than The Metro throwing s**t at the wall, hoping something sticks and other outlets picking up on the same report.