Ange Postecoglou confirms £60m Tottenham star will not play against Aston Villa and hails 'best' replacement

Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou says Brazilian striker Richarlison, signed from Everton in a deal with £60million in 2022 will not be involved this weekend after he picked up a knee injury in training. 

The 26-year-old missed the win against Crystal Palace last weekend but was at the stadium to cheer on his colleagues. He walked without help and there had been growing optimism that he could be involved this weekend but manager Postecoglou says he's not trained all week and would be left at home.

The Spurs boss said: "Everyone from last week is fit and available. Coming back. Pedro [Porro] is good, he's trained all week so no problem. Everyone else, including Richy, is still not training with the main group so unavailable." 

In Richarlison's absence, Timo Werner opened his Tottenham account with a well-taken goal to help Spurs to three points. The German will hope that he's able to now go on a run and get more goals before the end of the campaign. 

Asked what he made of the German who has two assists and a goal in six league games, the Spurs boss added: "I think he’s been really important. You can only imagine if we didn’t bring him in January, it would have been a much bigger burden on the other players in the group. Particularly when Sonny was away as well. We threw him in straight away. 

"And when you come in in January, especially for someone like Timo, standing as a mature player, he’s not a young player we’ve brought in to develop, we’re bringing him in to make an impact, and I think he has made an impact for us. 

"I do think there’s more to come from him for sure. He’s working hard in training. I think his performances are improving. I thought last week was probably his best performance, aside from his goal, I thought it was the best performance for us.

"That’s great for us. It’s also helped guys like Brennan Johnson and Kulusevski and others, like I said, the burden would have been pretty big on those guys if we hadn’t brought Timo in." 

Tottenham are looking to avoid back-to-back away league defeats against Villa for the first time since 2004.