Richarlison is in a bit of a pickle. After a frantic Premier League transfer deadline day that saw a move back to Everton, the club Spurs signed him from a few years ago, collapse, Pombo has seen his options dwindle by the day. Richarlison was left out of Tottenham’s squad registration by Roberto De Zerbi last week, which meant at the time his only options to play competitive football this season were clubs in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, and Brazil.
A move to Trabzonspor in Turkey was mooted,
but the window closed without an agreement. Likewise, the windows in Saudi Arabia and Portugal have also now closed. According to a report by Alasdair Gold in Football.London, that means the only option left for Richy is a permanent transfer back to Brazil, his home nation.
Spurs have already used up all of their permitted six international loans (Radu Dragusin to Fiorentina, Yang Min-hyeok to Westerlo, Guglielmo Vicario to Inter Milan, Kota Takai to Sint-Truidense, Mikey Moore to Köln, and Souza to FC Porto) so a loan to the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A is out of the question. The only way Richarlison leaves the club before January is if Tottenham and some unknown Brazilian club can come to a permanent transfer agreement before Friday, Brazil’s transfer deadline.
How likely is that? Boy, I have no idea, but it doesn’t seem very at the moment. There have been nebulous links about a return to Brazil for Richy in the past, but I haven’t seen anything even hinting at that this entire summer. That said, the Campeonato Brasileiro has actually spent oodles of money this summer; the league is second behind the Premier League in total money spent on transfers this summer, though it should be noted that the largest transfer fee paid is the €37.5m Palmeiras paid to Man City for Allan. Considering Spurs were asking £35m for Richarlison for Premier League clubs this summer, if there is a Brazilian club interested in bringing Richy home this week, Spurs will very likely need to take a not-insignificant bath on his expected fee.
The other option, of course, is to have Richy train on his own or with the U21s until the January transfer window opens and then try to offload him somewhere then. That’s the least palatable option for him, unless he’s content to sit tight and assess his options in a couple of months. Regardless, the decision has already been made for him by De Zerbi about his status on Tottenham’s first team, and the only thing left to do is salvage whatever’s left of his career and engineer a move somewhere else. Or the club can terminate his contract, allowing him to become a free agent. That might become an option in January if Spurs can’t find him a new home, and might be the way things end up; Richy’s contract at Spurs expires in June, though Spurs have the option to extend him a further year.
It’s sad and I don’t like it, but thankfully we have Mykhailo Mudryk to replace Richy to maintain Tottenham’s neck tattoo quota in this year’s squad.
