Player Focus: Richarlison

New signing Richarlison came from Everton for a fee of £60m. A hefty price tag, given he doesn’t slip straight into our starting XI. The Brazilian is yet to score for Spurs, but he has already proved he has a lot to offer.

Richarlison has made two appearances for Tottenham seeing as he was suspended for the Southampton game. In these two appearances, he made an impact in both, helping Spurs over the line. Against Chelsea, he was subbed on into a 4-4-2 formation, where his selfless runs off the ball were pivotal to Spurs clinching a point from the game. Whenever the ball was played into him, he held it up well and was a constant thorn in Chelsea’s side during his cameo.

Conte recently described him as ‘nasty’ which falls back to Jose Mourinho’s tenure at Spurs, where Jose focused on Spurs not being ‘nice guys’ on the pitch. And ultimately he was right, you have to have a mean streak if you want to win, and that’s exactly what Antonio Conte is building at Spurs, with Richarlison a prime example. I always felt that in the last couple of years, prior to Conte, teams had a belief that they could bully us, particularly away from home. Our horrendous away record in 2019 epitomises this. While we still might get bullied by teams on occasions, it happens far less frequently. And I’d like to think teams are now far more frightened when they come to N17.

Now, with Richarlison we unlock a different dimension, which we have seen a snippet of when he has been subbed on in both games. He and Kane have been playing as a pair up top, which we don’t usually see. Against Wolves, him and Kane were working really well together, holding up play nicely and effectively running down the clock. Richarlison also managed to get in behind a couple of times, one time performing a neat nutmeg to breeze past Nathan Collins, showing the Spurs fans the classic Brazilian flair which he also adds.

I think Richy will be an excellent signing, despite the hefty fee and I look forward to see more of him in a Spurs shirt!