‘He knows’… Pundit says 26-year-old Tottenham player actually does way too much defending

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Richarlison has hit a bit of form for Tottenham for the first time in 18 months since arriving.

The Brazilian has scored six goals in six games for Spurs now, and it looks like he’s finally moving in the right direction.

However, as always, there’s room for improvement, and speaking on The Spurs Show, Terry Naylor has been discussing what the Brazilian needs to do to improve further.

According to Naylor, Richarlison does too much defensively at the moment, claiming that he needs to be a bit more attack-minded and stay forward to collect the ball when Spurs clear it.

Richarlison does too much defending

Naylor shared his verdict on the 26-year-old attacker.

“He knows what he’s done, he knows the chances he’s missed and where he should’ve been running. The man is strong, he’s great in the air and he has pace. He has everything you need as a centre-forward. I think we can say he’s definitely a number nine but he does way too much defensively when we don’t need him to, just stay up there because when we clear the lines you need to be there,” Naylor said.

Working hard

We never thought we’d see the day that a striker is criticised for working too hard.

Richarlison does do a lot of tracking back, and while that does help Tottenham in a lot of ways, it has taken away from his attacking output over the past year.

Richarlison has found a way to blend hard work with goals over the past few weeks, and if he can keep that up, Spurs can have the best of both worlds, but, at the same time, if his goals, once again, start to dry up, perhaps this is something he should address by putting less focus on his defensive responsibilities.