Richarlison is in for a pivotal season. Will he break his Tottenham jinx?

Brazilian striker Richarlison moved to Tottenham from Everton a year ago for a hefty €60 million. Expectations were high, as he was one of the best players at Everton, not only in the Toffees team, but perhaps in the entire Premier League.

In the year that Richarlison has been at Tottenham, quite a lot has been written around him. Most recently due to his feud with coach Antonio Conte.

He was supposed to form one of the best attacking trio with Harry Kane and Son, instead there is talk of money being thrown away. If we were to evaluate the transfer in top or flop style, we are clearly talking flop here.

In the 2022/23 season, he started a total of 27 Premier League games, but played only 1,077 minutes. That’s not great anymore. What’s even worse, though, is his goal and yellow card stats. Richarlison has racked up more yellow cards (3) than goals (1).

He mainly racked up yellow cards for celebrating without a jersey, but then they were ruined by VAR. Although he managed to score 2 goals in the Champions League, it didn’t improve the impression much. Then in the English cups he came up empty in two starts.

The autumn performances were not glorious, but the hope for a better tomorrow was brought to Tottenham fans by the World Cup. Richarlison looked in good form and in good spirits at the tournament. He scored two goals against Serbia, he also made his mark against South Korea, but that was the end of it.

Brazil eventually crashed out in the quarter-finals. Richarlison, however, started in the starting line-up for all the matches, except the last one in the group, where they saved their strength.

The rest of the season after the World Cup? Tragedy again and again, one big disaster. He ended the season with a not very flattering rating of 6.73 (Sofascore). The cooperation with Son and Kane didn’t work, Richarlison didn’t assert himself, he didn’t look at all cool.

However, there is another season, a new coach and most importantly a chance to put last season behind us and show that Tottenham management didn’t blow 60 million in the air.

The fans will keep a close eye on the Brazilian, he has to win their favour. The worst case scenario for both sides is a repeat of last season. That would risk Tottenham wanting to get rid of Richarlison and let’s be honest, who is going to buy a striker who has scored 2 goals in 2 league seasons?

Nobody, probably even the Saudi clubs would have second thoughts. Richarlison has a season or so to recover.

Source: Transfermarkt, SofaScore