There is a chance Richarlison could feature for Spurs this weekend against Aston Villa, and Alasdair Gold has revealed he would not be surprised to see the Brazilian in action again very soon.
It has been a fantastic season for Richarlison so far, with 11 goals in all competitions. He scored nine of those goals in an eight-game run at the start of this year (Transfermarkt).
Tottenham were without their forward for the recent win over Crystal Palace, with Ange Postecoglou claiming Richarlison would be missing for at least two weeks, perhaps closer to three (Football.London).
However, in the aftermath of that Palace game, Richarlison told ESPN Brazil that he would be back in training this week and would be ready to face Aston Villa.
Will Richarlison be fit for the Aston Villa game?
The situation is a little cloudy at the moment, with various reports stating different things, and the man himself insisting he is fine. Now, Alasdair Gold has offered his thoughts, and suggested we should not be surprised if we do see Ricarlison feature at the weekend.
On the Gold and Guest Talk Tottenham podcast, Gold said: “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. 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… 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.”
There was a caveat to this, though, with Gold suggesting rushing back could be an issue for Richarlison: “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.”
Spurs Web Opinion
I think we’ll see Richarlison on the Spurs bench this weekend, and he could play the last 20 minutes or so, but I don’t envisage him being pushed to start the game.