From the highs of the unexpected UEFA Europa League trophy lift back in the 2024/25 campaign, to the fact that they finished in 17th place in the English Premier League for two seasons on the spin – it has been a strange old time for Tottenham Hotspur fans of late and now Richarlison is back in the news for all the wrong reasons.
With the new Stadium build taking the attentions away from a number of years of a managerial merry go round, tasting success and battling the drop appears to have sparked changes at the boardroom level with notorious chairman Daniel Levy leaving. With fresh faces now in charge, Roberto De Zerbi was appointed at the tail end of the campaign to stave off relegation and whilst he succeeded, it seems dabbling with the drop for two years running then forced them into a summer of incredible – and very un-Spurs like – spending. They were like a Betpanda live dealer dishing out the cards to different players in super quick fashion, as player after player signed on and the memory of the notorious frugal Levy was consigned to history.
Predictably with so many players coming in (mainly attacking talent) whilst other areas of the pitch were not improved, they have again had a very poor start to the 2026/27 top flight campaign, and even though only four games have been played in the league, they are once again in 17th place. There is also another growing distraction taking place at the old White Hart Lane, and it concerns the future of Richarlison.
The 54 capped Brazilian international striker has been at Spurs since he made the switch from Everton back in the summer of 2022, but it was fully expected that he would return to The Toffees to experience the Hill Dickinson Stadium before the summer transfer window slammed shut on Deadline Day, but that move failed to materialise. A very late stage deal to take him to Brazilian side Vasco da Gama also fell through just last week, and he now finds himself basically frozen out by De Zerbi, and he has not been included in their 25 man Premier League squad.
With top flight football out of the question until the New Year at the earliest for one of their highest earners, it was fully expected that he would feature in Tuesday evening’s third round League Cup clash with Liverpool at Anfield, but late on Tuesday evening ahead of the game it was confirmed in the media that De Zerbi has chosen to not include him in the squad when fans noticed that he had taken to his social media channels to post a crying emoji, and question ‘Why?’.
The situation is obviously not improved by the fact that Spurs are still to actually score in the league for the first time in their long professional history (Richarlison was top scorer last term), they lost 3-1 on Wednesday night and the player continues to explore possible options to just cancel the remaining nine months of his contract (even though Spurs hold an additional 12 month option should they wish to use it).
None of this is ideal after spending more than £300 million over the summer, and creating more headlines and disruption by not including him in the team when they can, is equally going to ruin any remaining value he holds further, possibly strengthen his contract arguments, and definitely not allow the training ground to begin to actually pull together.
It is great for neutrals though – it is so Spursy.
