Thomas Frank has explained that Richarlison knocked on his door on the Dane's first day with the Tottenham players in pre-season and told him he wanted to stay at the club.
The Brazilian has started the season in fine form, with impressive performances against both PSG and Burnley in the past couple of weeks, the latter game bringing two goals including an acrobatic scissors kick. However, Richarlison's injury problems over the years have always brought his future at Spurs into question and reports this week claimed that he was included in the negotiations for the failed move for Eberechi Eze.
Frank had earlier stated that he wanted Richarlison to remain at the club and he went further in explaining what the forward did on their first day together at Hotspur Way.
"Day one he came in and knocked on my door and said 'I want to stay'. I said 'good, I like you, I think you’re a good player, perfect, let’s crack on'," said the Tottenham head coach. "He’s been working very hard, very committed, gym, on the pitch, he has trained every session. There was one game we took him out of because of the injury history.
"We know we need to be very aware of that to build him, thin layers, one step at a time, taking good decisions, do our best to try to take good decisions, but I see a very committed player."
The move for Eze ended in failure when Arsenal entered the equation and after the complicated and ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of Nottingham Forest midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White the previous month, it is another high profile transfer miss by the club, something that has dogged them over the years with certain major targets.
When that background was put to Frank, the Spurs boss said: "I would say first I don’t know the history. Of course I’m reading a little bit and I’ve been briefed pretty well about the story that may have been something, but I can’t really look too much into that. What is happening with potential transfers or not potential transfers or rumours or not rumours, that of course either way I will keep for myself.
"What I can see is that we are working very hard. Also what I know is that it's not that easy, in general, when you want to sign a player. I can speak from experience in Brentford, I can speak about that, where we also wanted to sign players. Sometimes we succeeded, sometimes we didn’t. There’s a lot of moving parts. There’s the players, the families, the agents, there’s the club that wants to sell. So in general terms it makes it complicated."
So did he expect signing players to be an easier ordeal than at Brentford, where the Bees missed out on a number of players to bigger clubs, including some to Tottenham recently like Archie Gray and Brennan Johnson?
"If I'm honest no. It's the same problems, you just have a few more quid to spend. Same problems, same challenges, it's just a different bracket," said the Dane.
"It’s not too different [in the processes]. The big thing I don’t know here and I didn’t know at Brentford what was actually happening when they were negotiating. So that’s the same in both places you don’t know anything about unless you’re sitting in that room.
"I only did that once, a very good story, at Brentford....and that is for another time over a beer when there are no cameras. But it’s very good!
"Both places have good processes. Both places have good recruitment strategies. We all can see what Johan [Lange] and Rob [Mackenzie] have done here at Tottenham. There’s a lot of similarities to what Lee [Dykes] and his team did at Brentford, and then the working process in terms of how we decide players is good. We need there to be cooperation between the key stakeholders and then we need to take good decisions."
Tottenham's failures in the market, with Frank admitting to football.london on Friday that he had a similar squad to the one he started the transfer window with, mean they will have to try to do some big business late in the window when selling clubs are less likely to part with their players for fear of being unable to replace them.
So is there a danger now that Spurs make some wrong decisions through panic in order to try to change the narrative of them being strugglers in the market?
"I think in any transfer we need to do or will do or have done, it's very rare you feel 100 per cent sure, because you're always aiming for that perfect player, there are very few perfect players," said Frank. "In any position, we need to be confident in what we want and you can say when the clock is ticking down there can be a danger, but I think it's as key we can't be sloppy and take a bad decision at the beginning of the transfer window, so I think it's the same focus."
The pressure on Spurs has been ramped up this season by the sacking of Ange Postecoglou soon after the club's first trophy in 17 years and then chairman Daniel Levy saying that Europa League triumph was not enough and that he wanted the club to win the Premier League and Champions League.
"If I'm honest I'm not thinking too much about it," said Frank when asked about the chairman's declaration. "There will be a winner of the Premier League in what nine months. So far away. I'm focusing on one thing, go up to Manchester, do my very best to win and get three points and after that I'll focus on the next game."
The struggles in the transfer market and those high profile misses have changed the mood around the Tottenham fanbase and it's something Frank's predecessor Postecoglou spoke about, how quickly the whole feeling around the north London club can change after a disappointment.
"You’re speaking about the fans, I guess," said Frank when asked about trying to lift the mood. "I don’t read anything of that so I don’t know, but of course you guys are telling me. I guess that’s part of it.
"I think how we can lift the mood is good performances and winning on the pitch. That’s the key thing. Of course we all want as good an achievement and a squad as possible. As I’ve said many times, I think we’ve got a good exciting squad. Let’s see what will happen in the next eight/nine days."
He added: "I think I am too positive a guy. I’m not saying I can’t be, how can you say, either overwhelmed or whatever, but right now we’ve had two good performances. We lost on a penalty shoot-out so we haven’t actually lost a game yet.
"We’ve got two good players in. Kudus has been exceptional. Palhinha will be very good for us. We’re going to Manchester tomorrow. I have a big belief we can do something. Big respect for the best team in England for the last five out of six years or whatever. So I’m quite positive."
Frank does not get carried away by the modern obsession with transfer news and he believes that helps him not sway between the extremes of emotion.
"That’s the good thing about not reading anything. Of course I’m aware if you guys are saying it but if you don’t read it, you don’t get the same feeling," said the Dane. "That’s one thing. Then hopefully we are going to win all of our matches but as I said in the first meeting, we will probably lose some matches and there will be tough days.
"Right now there are more positive things I’m looking into. No matter if we are winning games or losing games, or signing 10 new players or not signing 10 new players, I need to focus on the day-to-day job. I need to make sure we train well, have fantastic meetings, top recoveries and have all the processes in place to do my best so we can help the signings and players. That’s my job and that’s what I’ll try to do."
