Richarlison to leave Tottenham? Or to stay put?
Richarlison’s Tottenham future looked considerably closer to resolved a few weeks ago than it does right now. De Zerbi had appeared to confirm the Brazilian wanted out, telling reporters at the weekend that Richarlison is “unbelievable” as a person but that the club “has to respect what he wants to do”, with Spurs said to have set an asking price of around £25m. [h/t The Express]
Since then, though, Richarlison has gone and complicated his own farewell tour by playing well, coming off the bench to score the winner against Chelsea in a pre-season friendly, having already netted against Auckland FC. And De Zerbi’s tone has shifted from resigned to genuinely unsure. Asked directly this week whether Richarlison wants to leave, the manager admitted he was not entirely certain. [h/t BBC]
“Sometimes he said to stay, sometimes he leaves. We have to speak anyway.”
The interest away from Tottenham has been real and fairly wide-ranging regardless of how this resolves. Juventus and Fenerbahce both show concrete interest, and there remains attention from clubs in Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and MLS, alongside the now-familiar suggestion that Everton could look to bring him back to Merseyside four years after selling him.
Uncertainty?
None of that changes the more basic problem sitting underneath all of it, which is that Richarlison’s actual output has not matched his profile since his arrival in 2022. He has hit double figures in the league in only two of his four seasons at the club, and while 32 goals and 15 assists in 133 appearances is a perfectly respectable overall return, it has rarely felt like the kind of consistent end product Tottenham were paying for at the time.
De Zerbi’s plan, as it stands, appears to be using pre-season to make an honest assessment before committing either way, with any final call likely to depend on whether Spurs land a new out-and-out striker in Eli Junior Kroupi or Dusan Vlahovic. That is a sensible enough approach given how muddled the picture has become. Richarlison, for his part, wants to stay in the Premier League and has recently taken British citizenship, both signs that this is a player who still sees his future in England rather than chasing a final big payday elsewhere.
Whether Tottenham share that vision by the time deadline day arrives is genuinely harder to call now than it was a fortnight ago, and that uncertainty, more than any particular transfer rumour, is the real story here. Time will tell what happens in this saga.