Everton traded Richarlison to Tottenham Hotspur two years ago, but the move hasn’t worked out for either party. Richarlison said an emotional goodbye to Everton a few years ago this week, but the controversial move continues to raise more questions than answers, and no one appears to be completely satisfied.
Ahead of the first anniversary, this reporter received a text message from an old friend who is a Liverpool fan asking if I still think Tottenham Hotspur had Everton off with the Richarlison deal. My response was that £50 million plus add-ons for Brazil’s number nine is a modest figure in today’s inflated transfer market. The Blues could have gotten more for him if the World Cup was held in the summer, as it usually is (he netted three goals in the finals). If Spurs didn’t know how to use him properly, that was their problem.
The Reds have always failed to appreciate him, and after a verbal altercation with Jamie Carragher, the former Kop Idol declared: “He simply winds people up, Richarlison. “He winds me up.” It wasn’t until the Brazilian extended an olive branch by asking Carragher onto the ground for a play about at the Etihad that the Reds old boy began to see the ex-Blues ace in a new light.
Richarlison, on the other hand, has always worn his heart on his sleeve, and his willingness to work, along with his silky abilities – everything you’d expect from a forward player from his nation – has won him over many Evertonians. It was love at first sight as he made his two-goal debut at a rainy Molineux on the first day of the 2018/19 season.
Here was a player that rose to become an Olympic gold medal winner while at Everton – he was also the top scorer in the tournament at the Tokyo Games – but although he arrived at the club when they were splashing out on players from Barcelona and then played at Goodison Park under the great Carlo Ancelotti (incredibly, it’s understood that the generation gap between the two ensured he initially didn’t realise the Italian had been a world-class player in his own right before
In that regard, Everton failed him by failing to build a competitive team around a talent who gets to play alongside Neymar and his teammates when he goes on international duty. He did, however, leave them with some parting presents in the form of six goals in his last nine games, including that critical home win over Chelsea at the start of the final month of the 2021/22 season.
As previously stated, there haven’t really been any winners in Richarlison’s move to Tottenham, other than Everton’s bean counters, given that the deal was pushed through before the end of June to ensure the Blues’ annual accounts were given a rosier tint, but that didn’t stop them from being judged to have breached Profit & Sustainability Rules. Everton chairman Bill Kenwright and Spurs counterpart Daniel Levy negotiated a deal for the boy who had risen from poverty on the streets of Nova Venecia in Espirito Santo to become Walton’s darling across the table at Scott’s, the Mayfair seafood restaurant that sells caviar and has an elegant oyster and champagne bar.
For his part, the player, now 27, has failed to truly impress in north London, scoring just once in 27 Premier League matches in his debut season and now with 15 in 66 matches in all competitions, compared to 53 in 152 appearances for the Blues. Tottenham are said to be open to listen to appropriate bids for Richarlison, who has failed to make Brazil’s team for the current Copa America tournament, this summer, but Everton appear unlikely to have the funds to bring him back.
The midfielder appeared reverent or maybe regretful when he scored twice for Spurs in front of Gwladys Street on his debut appearance at Goodison Park, a 2-2 tie on February 3 of this year. He’d undoubtedly leap at the chance to return for ‘The Grand Old Lady’s’ historic final season, but it appears that the mathematics don’t match up.
