Tottenham confirm Emerson Royal knee injury, but Richarlison to return soon

Sooooooo there’s bad news, and there’s good news this morning regarding Tottenham Hotspur’s pair of injured Brazilians. First the bad news — while we reported yesterday that Emerson Royal was expected to miss time after injuring his knee while on international duty from Brazil, now we know the extent of the injury.

The club tweeted today that Emerson has a meniscus tear in his knee, which is bad and requires surgery. Still, it’s better than an ACL/MCL injury, so there’s that.

The club didn’t specifically say that Royal is out for the season, so we’re going to assume that he’s not. But he’ll be out for a not-insignificant period, so let’s go with that ubiquitous phrase that Spurs fans have heard so often with regards to injury — 6-8 weeks.

But there is good news! According to Dan Kilpatrick in the Evening Standard, Tottenham’s OTHER Brazilian, Richarlison, is set for a return to the squad in the near future, though he’s unlikely to be ready for this weekend’s match against Everton. That said, he might be ready to go for Spurs’ home match against Brighton & Hove Albion on April 8.

Having Richy back for the home match against Brighton would be a huge boost. I think we all feared the worst when Richarlison limped off after five minutes in Spurs’ 3-3 draw at Southampton, especially since he was practically in tears heading to the sidelines. Richarlison had apparently injured his hamstring in warmups but figured he could run it off. He couldn’t.

Emerson joins a host of other injured Tottenham players, some of whom are close to a return and some whom will be out for a while. Hugo Lloris and Ryan Sessegnon should be coming back before too long along with Richarlison; Ben Davies and Yves Bissouma are still recovering but may be back before the end of the season along with Emerson Royal; Rodrigo Bentancur has a serious knee injury and may not return before the end of 2023.