Tottenham Hotspur have been linked with a move for Watford winger Richarlison.
The 20-year-old has four goals and two assists in 11 matches for Watford since joining from Fluminese in the summer, for a fee that the London Evening Standard reports as £13m.
Richarlison ticks a lot of boxes for Spurs. For starters, he is young and likely to be affordable as chairman Daniel Levy tries to balance player recruitment with funding the club’s new stadium.
Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino likes his attacking players to be versatile, and Richarlison can play out wide or as a second striker so would be able to fit into a number of different systems.
And Richarlison actually offers Spurs something they don’t currently have – a player with pace who loves running at defenders.
However, one area of concern could be the South American’s wayward finishing.
Richarlison has had 39 shots in the league this season, second only to Harry Kane’s 59, and has only found the target with seven of them. That is a shooting accuracy of 18%, compared to Kane’s 37%.
Christian Eriksen and Son Heung-min, the Spurs players whom Richarlison would be looking to usurp from the team, both find the target with over 45% of their shots, which is significantly better than the Watford star.
His wastefulness was most noticeable in Watford’s 4-2 defeat to Chelsea when Richarlison had a couple of glorious chances to seal victory for the Hornets before Antonio Conte’s side launched a late comeback.
Is this something which might deter Tottenham from making a move for the player? Or should Pochettino be encouraged that Richarlison is getting into goalscoring positions in the first place?
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