Richarlison found out he was not in Tottenham's squad for Tuesday's Carabao Cup tie with Liverpool the same way everyone else did, and he did not take it quietly. He screenshotted a post about his omission, added the word "Why?" and a tearful sad-faced emoji, and posted it publicly.
Roberto De Zerbi had already answered that question the day before, without much warmth.
De Zerbi: "I can't go every day to pray for him to stay"
"At the start of this season, I spoke to him many times to convince him to stay and he didn't want to," the Spurs head coach said on Monday. "What I have done at the beginning of this season has been to speak with him and to propose an extension of the contract. If he said, 'no thank you,' I finished my job."
He then drew a line under it. "I know what happened in the last 45 days. It's not right if I explained. It's not my behaviour. The relationship, the problem is between the player and the club."
Two moves collapsed in five weeks
This is where the bad feeling comes from. A £35m deadline-day return to Everton fell apart over personal terms. Then Vasco da Gama agreed a fee with Spurs, and that one died the same way before the Brazilian window shut on Friday. Richarlison has now been left out of the club's Premier League squad entirely.
His contract runs to next summer, with Spurs holding an option to extend by twelve months. Sources indicate he wants to be released from the remaining nine months. The club, which paid Everton £60m for him in 2022 on a five-year deal, holds the cards and knows it.
The timing makes Spurs look worse, not him
Tottenham have not scored a goal in four Premier League matches. Not one. The club has never gone through an opening month like it. They spent more than £300m in the summer to fix a squad that finished 17th twice in a row, and the return so far is a blank sheet.
Meanwhile the player they are freezing out was their top scorer last season with 12 goals in all competitions, five more than Micky van de Ven and Joao Palhinha managed. He has also scored four times in seven games against Liverpool while at Spurs, which is the fixture he has just been left out of.
You can defend the decision on principle. It is harder to defend on the evidence of the scoreboard.
Player context: Richarlison, 29, Brazil forward, 54 caps. Signed by Tottenham from Everton for £60m in 2022 on a five-year deal. Contract expires in the summer of 2027 with a 12-month club option. Left out of the Spurs squad for the Carabao Cup tie against Liverpool on Tuesday 15 September 2026.
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