Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou has confirmed that Richarlison will be out for a “significant amount of time” after sustaining a hamstring injury last Sunday.
Richarlison was substituted after coming on against Aston Villa, and Postecoglou, speaking at his Friday morning press conference, revealed that it was a “significant hamstring injury” and would be a “long-term issue”.
The Brazil forward had only recently returned from a two-month injury absence, and Postecoglou explained how frustrated Richarlison was to pick up another injury so soon. Richarlison pulled up after setting up Dominic Solanke’s second goal in Spurs’ 4-1 win, and was substituted straight after.
“He was very disappointed,” Postecoglou said. “I said in the lead up, we tried to take a different approach. He worked awfully hard on his rehab but also his general fitness. He’d really trimmed down in terms of his conditioning. He was doing everything right, we eased him back into playing, we didn’t want to overload him. And unfortunately he broke down again.”
Postecoglou later described it as “long-term issue”, and when asked for a timescale for Richarlison’s return, he said how serious it was. “I’m reticent to put [a time on] it but he’ll be out for a significant amount of time,” he said. “It’s a significant hamstring injury.”
“We’ve just got to keep getting him back in there and working with him to get him back up, because he’s an important player,” he said. “You saw last week the impact he had coming off the bench and setting up the goal for [Solanke]. Disappointing for him, disappointing for us because we haven’t really had him at our disposal this year. But we’ll just keep working with Richy and try to get him back.”
Tottenham will assess Cristian Romero on Friday and Saturday before deciding whether he can play against Ipswich. Romero limped off against Ipswich after hurting his foot tackling Morgan Rogers and was not involved against Galatasaray in the Europa League on Thursday night.
“Cristian, we’ll see how he goes the next couple of days,” Postecoglou said. “The idea is to try and get him out there and train and he’s pretty keen to, so he has a chance for the weekend.”
Mikey Moore, who also missed the trip to Istanbul, is unlikely to return for Sunday, and neither is Timo Werner, leaving Romero as the only plausible return.
Postecoglou will continue to manage Son Heung-min’s return from injury. The Spurs captain missed two weeks with injury and then played 56 minutes against Villa and 45 minutes against Galatasaray.
“He had the injury, we brought him back, he had a relapse, and what we don’t want to do is put him back into that cycle,” Postecoglou explained.
“It’s very easy to fall into that cycle by pushing players, particularly when they’re coming back from injury. We’re managing his minutes, building him up. Hopefully we can continue to build that up. Ultimately for us it is about getting him back and keeping him back because we cant afford any more injuries in that position.”
“We’ve already got Wilson [Odebert] with a long-term injury, and we’ve got a Richy with long-term issue. We’ve got Mikey out, we cant afford to lose a player in that area of the park.”
Postecoglou added Micky Van de Ven will be back “after the international break”.
(Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
