Tottenham Hotspur’s attacking options have been limited ahead of Sunday’s Premier League clash with Nottingham Forest as Richarlison is sidelined with a knee injury.
Richarlison missed consecutive Premier League clashes against Crystal Palace and Aston Villa before making a late, inconsequential cameo in the disappointing 3-0 loss to Fulham.
The 26-year-old has started each of Tottenham’s last three Premier League outings on the bench, including the most recent 1-1 draw against West Ham United.
The forward appeared to emerge unscathed from the London derby, but Ange Postecoglou has confirmed that he will miss the game against Forest as a precautionary measure.
The good news for Spurs fans is that the setback appears to be short-term and Richarlison should be good to go for the subsequent trip to Newcastle United.
“He’s [Richarlison] had a bit of a niggle in his knee, so we’ll probably give him this weekend off just to get totally over it,” Postecoglou said in his SPURSPLAY pre-match interview ahead of the game against Forest.
“Hopefully he’ll be ready for Newcastle next week – everybody else got through the game well.”
Richarlison joins Manor Solomon, Fraser Forster and Ryan Sessegnon on the absentee list, but Postecoglou should have enough firepower to dispatch relegation-threatened Forest.
With Aston Villa falling to a thumping defeat against Manchester City, the game against Forest is a must-win for Spurs.
Postecoglou’s troops must pile the pressure on the Villans with two points separating both sides, although Unai Emery’s side has played one more game.
While Richarlison is back on the list of absentees, Brennan Johnson has recovered from a knock and is ready to face his former club.
No Tottenham player has been directly involved in more Premier League goals (seven) than the ex-Forest man since the turn of the year.
He’ll be eager to continue his rich vein of form against his former team, with Postecoglou likely to name an unchanged starting line-up from the 1-1 draw against West Ham.
Tottenham potential starting line-up:
(4-2-3-1): Guglielmo Vicario; Destiny Udogie, Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero, Pedro Porro; Rodrigo Bentancur, Yves Bissouma; Timo Werner, James Maddison, Brennan Johnson; Heung-min Son.
