Tottenham face-off against top four rivals Aston Villa this weekend, in what will be an all-important game to determine which of the pair goes on to play Champions League football next season.
Richarlison injury worry ahead of Aston Villa
Spurs’ clash against Unai Emery’s side is arguably manager Ange Postecoglou’s most crucial game of the season to date, but star striker Richarlison is currently a doubt.
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The Italian advises Spurs on a consultancy basis.
The former Everton star, who endured a slow start to his Spurs career under Antonio Conte, is now one of the success stories of Postecoglou’s early reign – even if Spurs are still said to want a new striker this summer.
Indeed, Richarlison boasts nine goals in his last 10 league games for the Lilywhites, prior to picking up a knee injury after the 2-1 loss to Wolves recently.
|
Richarlison’s best league games for Tottenham this season |
Match Rating (via WhoScored) |
|---|---|
|
Tottenham 4-1 Newcastle |
8.85 |
|
Everton 2-2 Tottenham |
8.22 |
|
Tottenham 3-1 Bournemouth |
7.91 |
|
Man United 2-2 Tottenham |
7.80 |
|
Nottingham Forest 0-2 Tottenham |
7.67 |
It’s an unfortunate bit of timing for the Brazilian, who was coming into his own and taking Harry Kane’s mantle with real aplomb, so it will now be interesting to see when he could return to action for Tottenham.
There have been some discrepancies as to when Richarlison could be back available, as reliable journalist Alasdair Gold now points out on an episode of the ‘Gold & Guest Talk Tottenham’ podcast (via TBR).
Gold suggests Richarlison could be back for Villa
Indeed, speaking on the podcast, Gold predicts that Richarlison could be back to face Aston Villa.
“I’m intrigued to see when he comes back from his injury, because that was one of the big things from the weekend as well,” said Gold.
“Every single person involved was telling us something completely different. Postecoglou told us three to four weeks in the press conference ahead of the game, Richarlison’s knee injury was going to keep him out.
“Then he told, he did a Spurs club interview which went out just, we saw it after the press conference had finished, in that he said two to three weeks. Then the Brazil manager later that day picked Richarlison in his Brazil squad and said he’ll be back next week.
“Then Richarlison said after the game to a Brazilian journalist from ESPN, ‘Oh I’m pretty much back in training now I’ll be back hopefully next week’ – which he’s then apparently told this Fred guy as well I think.
“I wouldn’t be stunned if we saw Richarlison on the bench at Villa Park, I don’t think that’s out of this world by the way people are talking. But then again we’ve also had a lot of players who think they are way further ahead than they are – often with international duty coming up as well to kind of prove a point.”
If the 26-year-old is featured on Postecoglou’s bench, or even starting XI, it would be a good bit of news for Champions League-chasing Spurs.
