Roberto De Zerbi has been asked never to play one senior Tottenham star again after handing him a start against Brentford.
Spurs struggled to cope with Brentford’s intensity and barely even laid a glove on the home side in their opening game of the season, with the Bees emerging deserved 3-0 winners.
De Zerbi admitted that Tottenham have not gelled yet as a team, and confessed that the performance and the result were a wake-up call to everyone at the club.
The Lilywhites were severely depleted for the clash, with the Italian being without several of his key starters, and the squad players who got an opportunity failed to cover themselves in glory.
Jamie O’Hara says Richarlison cannot play again for Tottenham
With Dominic Solanke not having featured much in pre-season, De Zerbi decided to hand Richarlison an opportunity to lead the line in West London.
The 29-year-old had been in fine form in front of goal in pre-season, but he was a complete passenger in Saturday’s clash, having to feed off scraps and struggling to impose himself on the Brentford defenders.
O’Hara was furious with Tottenham’s overall performance and is hoping that this is the last we see of the striker in a Spurs shirt.
Speaking after the 3-0 loss, the pundit told talkSPORT: “You cannot start a Premier League season like that, and I know there’s injuries, but that is absolutely disgraceful. With Richarlison, I don’t know why this guy is still at our football club, he ain’t good enough.
“You’ve got (Dominic) Solanke… I’d rather play James Maddison up front. Like, genuinely, Maddison, I’ll play him as a false nine. Seriously, Richarlison cannot play for Tottenham anymore, he’s nowhere near good enough, get him off the pitch.
“(Lucas) Bergvall and Richarlison are the reason why we finished 17th for the last two seasons. If we play like that we will go down, because you cannot turn up to a football match and play like that, they should be ashamed of themselves.
“That is a disgrace, an absolute disgrace, and we have been scammed once again by Richarlison. “It’s so bad, I’m ashamed to be a Spurs fan – one game in. How can you give us that on the first day? Absolute guff.”
De Zerbi makes confident Lucas Bergvall claim following Brentford loss
O’Hara may get his wish regarding Richarlison, who is being heavily linked with a late exit from Spurs as the Lilywhites are about to add firepower to their forward line with the additions of Savinho and Omar Marmoush.
However, it is a completely different story regarding Bergvall, with De Zerbi having confirmed that the Swede is 100 per cent staying at the club.
Despite hooking the midfielder at half-time, the Tottenham boss insisted that Bergvall did not have a bad game on Saturday, and confidently asserted that the youngster will never repeat the kind of mistake he made in the lead-up to Brentford’s second goal.