Everton legend Duncan Ferguson has slammed Roberto De Zerbi for banishing Richarlison at Tottenham Hotspur.
Richarlison was brutally left out of Spurs' Premier League squad this season and has been limited to appearances for the club's U21s. The Brazilian striker was on the brink of leaving north London in the summer but saw a return to Everton fall through late on in the window, while other options also failed to materialise.
Ferguson knows the former Watford man well, having working with him during his spell as Everton interim boss. And the Premier League cult hero has questioned De Zerbi's ruthless approach.
In a wide-ranging chat on the Overlap Daily , brought to you by Sky Bet, Ferguson claimed that Richarlison deserves to be in the Spurs first-team and has a theory on why the striker no longer has a future at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
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He said: "I don’t know what the manager at Tottenham’s done. I don’t know if they’ve had a massive fall-out, and knowing Richy (Richarlison) they probably have. but you’ve got to put your arm around him and say, ‘Come on, Richy,’ and get him back in.
"You don’t leave a player like that out (of the squad) unless there’s been a real murder: he’s chinned him, or there’s been a proper scrap on the training ground. Richarlison’s a good player, and Tottenham are not that great, are they?
"It’s all hands-on deck. You need all your assets out there. The manager knows what he’s doing, he’s on the ground, but Richarlison’s a great player and I enjoyed working with him.”
Ferguson also gave an insight into what Richarlison is like to manage, having worked with the hot-headed Brazilian at Everton. He added: "I used to put the scores up on a board, like a chart of who’d scored the most goals in training and who’d won the most games, and I’d add it all up. Richarlison was a bugger for it. He used to come in and say, ‘Where’s my point?’ because I’d forgotten to put his point up. He was so competitive.
"He got a delegation together, Allan (Marques Lueriro), who played for Napoli, came in and said to me, ‘Richy’s (Richarlison) not happy with you, Duncan. He thinks you don’t like him.’ And I said to them for a laugh, ‘No, I don’t like him.’ He said, ‘You favour all the English players: Dominic (Calvert- Lewin), Mason Holgate and Tom Davies, all the British lads.’ I said, ‘That’s right, I’m favouring the British players.’
"But he was so competitive, and a great player for Everton. He was tough, he could head the ball, but he was always rolling around on the floor, and I hated that. He was always diving. In my whole career, I never dived once. Not once.”
Ferguson also took aim at De Zerbi for taking his Spurs players to Marbella on warm-weather training camp. Ferguson understands the pros and cons but has questioned the timing.
He added: “I thought that was ridiculous, and I’ll tell you why. They’ve just been away on an international break for three, four weeks, away from their families. They come back and then they go away again, unless they took all their families with them.
"We did it back in the day. We went to La Manga, and there was murder because everybody went on a night out to the nightclubs. It has been done before, so I’m not saying the game’s gone in general. But you shouldn’t be going on a warm-weather break after they’ve just been away on warm-weather training with their international teams.
"I thought that was a bad, bad move from the manager at Tottenham. If the club had a few quid, and it wasn’t straight after an international break, I think I would take a team. You could do that.”