Richarlison returning to Tottenham with hamstring injury

Tottenham Hotspur received another big blow this morning at a time when the club should be celebrating the impending resumption of club football. According to The Athletic (£), Spurs’ Brazilian forward Richarlison is set for another period of recovery after apparently suffering a hamstring injury just before Brazil’s penalty shootout loss to Croatia in Qatar last week.

Richarlison apparently tweaked his hammy in the warmups ahead of the match, but still started and played 84 minutes of action before being a late substitute by Tite. According to Tim Spiers, Richarlison was due back to Tottenham’s Hotspur Way today and will have a scan that will determine the severity of his injury and whether he will miss any matches for Spurs.

I’m not mad at Richarlison for being injured. Players rarely can do anything about an injury when it happens. I’m not even necessarily mad at him for playing nearly an entire World Cup match knowing he tweaked a hammy — we know how important these games are for the players involved and there are few bigger than a World Cup quarterfinal.

I am, however, just frustrated at the situation. You may recall that Richarlison had only just gotten healthy from another injury that kept him out of Spurs’ lineups for over a month ahead of the World Cup. Now he could miss even more time at a point where Spurs really really need him.

The fact that Richy was able to play 84 minutes with a bad hammy suggests that maaaaaaaybe the injury isn’t as bad as it could be, but club physios are much more risk averse than national team managers. We may just have to cross our fingers and hope the scan results come out okay. Spurs have a week and a half before their Boxing Day match at Brentford and are likely going to be without a few players (Ivan Perisic, Cuti Romero, even Hugo Lloris) for their first post-World Cup match. Rodrigo Bentancur also suffered an injury of his own that could keep him out of the Brentford match as well. It would suck to shorten Antonio Conte’s bench even further.