Richarlison's Future at Spurs: De Zerbi's Concerns After Chelsea Win

SYDNEY — Richarlison walked off the Accor Stadium pitch as Tottenham’s match-winner. Half an hour later, his manager openly questioned whether the Brazilian will still be a Spurs player in a year’s time.

A tidy tap-in had sealed a 2-1 friendly victory over Chelsea on Saturday, but Roberto De Zerbi’s postmatch remarks cut through the warm glow of a preseason win. With 12 months left on Richarlison’s contract and no talks under way over an extension, the Italian laid bare the uncertainty hanging over one of his key forwards.

De Zerbi lifts lid on Richarlison uncertainty

“I don’t know,” De Zerbi admitted when asked if Richarlison would stay. “Because as a player, as a guy, he’s unbelievable in his attitude and behaviour, but in the end, we have to respect what he wants to do.”

The numbers back up the coach’s reluctance to lose him. Richarlison hit 12 goals last season, a return De Zerbi was quick to underline as the product of instinct, not fortune.

“It’s not so easy to find another striker as Richarlison, because Richarlison scores goals and he knows the way,” he said. “The new striker, we don’t know. The other striker, we don’t know. He scored 12 goals last season — not lucky, because he feels the way to score goals.”

And yet the message from the player has been anything but clear.

“So I don’t know. I didn’t understand well because sometimes he says he wants to stay, sometimes he wants to leave,” De Zerbi continued. “There is not any problem. He’s a lovely guy. All of us know him; he makes the club, the staff, because he works hard every day, seriously every day, and we can’t say anything negative.”

A goalscorer who wants to be loved, a coach who wants clarity, a club staring at a contract clock. The tension is obvious. Spurs risk losing a proven Premier League forward for less than his value or watching him drift into the final months of his deal with no resolution.

Archie Gray handed the armband — and a message

While Richarlison weighs his future, De Zerbi has already nailed his colours to the mast with Archie Gray.

The 20-year-old midfielder has worn the captain’s armband in every game of Tottenham’s tour of Australia. It is a bold move in a dressing room that still includes seasoned figures such as Ben Davies, but De Zerbi made it sound simple.

“I’m the coach, I decide,” he said with a smile when asked about the strategy.

Beneath the grin sat a clear intention. This was about more than a preseason gesture.

“Anyway, I think this has been more important for Archie Gray than for Ben Davies because it’s like to give Archie something more as a confidence booster,” De Zerbi explained. “Last season, I said he is the future of the club, as well as the present. It’s important for us because he can cover 2-3 positions on the pitch.”

Gray may not relish all of those roles. De Zerbi knows it and is pushing him through it.

“He doesn’t love too much to play in the right-back position,” the coach said, “but I think with the captain, you have to think first of all for the group, for the team, for the club, then for yourself.

“So it was something more to give him, because he decided to give more to this club, even with his different position, even if he doesn’t play in the best eleven.”

The message is unmistakable: leadership at Tottenham will be defined by versatility, sacrifice and loyalty. Gray, still only 20, has been placed at the heart of that project.

Mudryk’s return and an old bond renewed

On the other side of the pitch, another story unfolded — one that had little to do with Spurs but clearly meant a great deal to De Zerbi.

Mykhailo Mudryk returned to Chelsea’s squad after winning his appeal against a doping ban that had kept him out of professional football since November 2024. For most observers, it was a notable subplot to a preseason game. For De Zerbi, it was personal.

The pair worked together at Shakhtar Donetsk, where Mudryk’s explosive rise under De Zerbi helped earn him his move to the Premier League. The Italian still talks about the winger in deeply affectionate terms.

De Zerbi described Mudryk as “my second son” and did not hide his delight at seeing him back.

“I’m very, very happy,” he said. “A good guy, a top player, hopefully he can show what he suffered in the last two years in the next season. Maybe not against Tottenham, but he’s a lovely guy and he’s a very, very good player.”

So Tottenham leave Sydney with a win, a captain in waiting and a cloud over their main striker’s future. De Zerbi has made his stance clear on all three. The next move, as so often in modern football, belongs to the player.