This comment aged really well. Richarlison had a great game versus Burnley. He displayed great courage in talking honestly about problems which hundreds of millions around the world have. I wish him nothing but the best. But he doesn't happen to be good enough to be more than a reserve at Spurs. As a reserve, he provides energy, annoyance and some aerial threat. But Johnson's expected goal stat in the NLD equaled Richarlison's for the year. While it's true that Richarlison was in a scoring slump, his greater problem as a striker is that he's not good at creating good chances. He doesn't know how to make the right runs at the right times. He stands with the CBs, jostles and yells for the ball. That's not good enough at a PL top six level, especially when his hold up play and close control skills are mediocre at best. And while he is an aerial threat, he's not a huge one. He needs an absolutely first rate crosser like Perisic, just as you say.
If you look at his WC 2022 foray, Richarlison is very adept in the intricate close passing moves that pass thru the defence into the box. Current Spurs are not capable of that, so he has to be capable of long-range goodies as Kane and Son are, or be a 6 yard box prowler like Kane is. Sadly he is not showing any of the core competences other than headers from set piece play.
And I think what makes this situation more annoying/ frustrating or however you want to describe it is that many of us on here and no doubt world wide foresaw all of this before he kicked a ball in our shirt. I think even those who’ve kept an optimistic mindset over Richarlison deep down had/ have huge worries and concerns at his signing, ability and impact. Usually when a club signs a new player there’s a general sense of optimism at the beginning, when you look at when we signed Ndombele and Lo Celso they came off the back of impressive seasons and there was a feeling we’d brought in two players who could go to the top, how wrong we were but nonetheless there was still early optimism. In Richarlison’s case, we’d all had 5 previous years of outside observation of Richarlison, in those 5 seasons he’s never once impressed enough for neutrals to truly take note of him, he’s never been considered one of the top strikers/ forwards in the division, we more or less knew what to expect or more importantly what not to expect (decent in the air, mediocre finishing, below par technical ability, likely less than 10 league goals a season) upon his signing and the price tag obviously exacerbated any feelings towards it. A real disastrous decision by the club, one that from the get-go felt like we were throwing money down the drain.
As if that weren't enough, it was also fixing what wasn't broken. Spurs had about as good a group of forwards as could be hoped for, including Moura, who was exactly what you wanted in a reserve: a different option and press-breaking dribbler who's capable of great things on big occasions. Son won the Golden Boot, Kulusevski was among the couple of leaders in G + A/minute and Kane was a briliiant 9/10. Bringing in Richarlison apparently threw off three of them, presumably by taking or threatening to take their minutes. If your forwards as a group are your strength, make your big purchase a defender or midfielder.
I did feel we needed a new fourth choice forward last season. I didn’t rate Moura, especially his last few years as he’d simply been dining out on Amsterdam but what I definitely didn’t want is to be paying £60m for a player that was inferior to Moura. But similar to as you’ve said, where we went wrong is that we paid the wrong amounts for the positions. Instead of paying £60m for a backup forward and loaning in a CB expected to play regularly, we should’ve spent £60m on the CB and loaned in the forward. Thankfully, the majority of signings made specifically by Paratici have actually been a success, and it’s typical Spursy luck that he can no longer do his job here but he’s leaving us in a better position than which he found.
The continued overlooking of midfield, as both the ubermench and Conte needed (at the very least) a Matic-like DM for their tactics to actually work yet we never appeared to be in for one at any point, continues to baffle me But not as much as the club signing up with a crypto scam today...
I don't find comparisons with international football to be much help. Tournament football is different to the long distance marathon that is the league. I've often found the pace of the game at international level is far slower than the PL, probably due to a combination of players being totally knackered at the end of a season, hot weather and the presence of dozens of smaller teams who set up first and foremost to avoid defeat. It's the reason Maguire looks like a competent player at that level. He has an extra two seconds to dally on the ball and isn't often caught in possession. Similarly Richarlison has that extra second to pick a short pass or make a run and whereas on the international stage he isn't picked up, it is bread and butter to the average PL level defence.
I think that this game is a perfect example of why Richarlison hasn't worked for us, yet. We bought him on for a few minutes and removed any other threat in the team. He thrives on crosses and we didn't attempt any when he was on the pitch. Son scored twice from Maddison passes into dangerous areas. We took off both and replaced a creative player with a defensive one. He's already struggling with confidence and that won't have helped.
We’re not gonna be hitting many crosses now though as Perisic is the only sufficient and prominent crosser in the team, Porro can whip them too but with him playing an inverted role he won’t be delivering too many himself anyway. As is obvious, I’ve never been a fan of his as it is but there really is literally zero use for him now the Croat is out, that had the promising signs of a 20 minute impact if the duo were on at the same time but that faint glimpse of a mini revival for Richarlison is now dead. I think we’re better off investing minutes in Veliz to see what he can do. We don’t know what he’s capable of and that for me is better to go with than persist with what we already know we’ll be getting (or won’t be getting) when we bring Richarlison on.
The only other half decent crosser of a ball we have is Ben Davies, who I can recall setting Kane up with great assists. But all's going to be OK.....I hear Sessegnon is nearly fit again!
Didn't Emerson have a rep for being a good crosser on loan at Betis? Or is this yet more evidence that defenders in La Liga tend to be a bit **** at defending crosses?
Gil can cross the ball and it looks like he's nearly back in the picture. Set up a great header for Lamela last season, for example: The other necessity is creativity from the bench for our midfield. Lo Celso might be back soon, but for how long? Jamie Donley was pictured training with the first team yesterday: please log in to view this image Maybe he's someone that Postecoglou's considering?
That’s if Gil does get sufficient game time, I like him and think he’d be a menace under Ange but will have to see if he does get minutes. Lo Celso and creativity is an oxymoron. Donley deserves chances but no idea if he’ll definitely get them. Though the creativity from the middle doesn’t really help Richarlison as that won’t be crosses. It’ll be through balls and quick passes, all of which Richarlison struggles with as his first touch is poor and his one on one finishing is well below the required level. Case in point he almost certainly misses both of Son’s goals had he been in those positions. First one hell either hit wide or just miss-kick it, second he’ll straight at Raya, he doesn’t have that level of finishing Son does, those two finishes were genuinely top tier.
