Insider: Richarlison has ‘high-end grade two’ injury as Tottenham get bad news
Richarlison has sustained a “high-end grade two” hamstring injury and Tottenham may now be without him for up to six weeks.
That is the view of injury expert Ben Dinnery, who runs the Premier Injuries site and spoke exclusively to Football Insider about any updates to Tottenham’s sidelined Brazilian.
Richarlison raised a few eyebrows in Qatar after it was revealed that he’d be leading the line for Tite’s Brazil side in the World Cup, and the 25-year-old made a fantastic start to the tournament by scoring three goals in the opening four matches.
However, he then suffered a hamstring injury that ruled him out of the Qatar tournament as well as the return of the Premier League.
As reported by the Daily Mail last Friday (23 December), Antonio Conte expected Richarlison to stay on the sidelines for a further four weeks.
However, Dinnery has given a more concerning assessment of Richarlison’s injury, with the injury expert suggesting that Tottenham may have to wait six weeks for him to recover.
“In terms of his return timeline that’s fairly indicative of the fact that we’re looking at something which was something reasonably severe in terms of how bad It was,” Dinnery told Football Insider’s Sean Fisher.
“It’s certainly grade two and maybe pushing high-end grade two at that.
“So, this is significant damage within the muscle fibres and we’re probably looking at the region of around about six weeks.
“Domestic cup competitions may provide good opportunity for the likes of Richarlison and other players on the fringes of starting to come back and at least get some competitive minutes in their legs to gain that little bit of match sharpness.
“We’re looking at Tottenham, who will predominantly go with Kane, Son and Kulusevski as the front three – it’ll come down to how those three players perform.
“We know what Richarlison can bring to the team after a superb World Cup, and if he’s not returning until mid to late January, then it’s certainly not going to be until February until we’re seeing anything like those sort of pre-injury levels.
“He’s going to need that opportunity to sort of get himself back up to speed and how quickly that happens will be determined by the opportunities afforded to him by Antonio Conte.“
In other news, a Tottenham expert feels sorry for Fraser Forster after his latest update