Tottenham Hotspur's Richarlison named Worst Premier League Signing of the Season

By Barney Corkhill, Editor | 13 June 2023

Tottenham's Richarlison named Worst Premier League Signing of the Season

Tottenham Hotspur's Richarlison is named the worst Premier League signing of the season in our Sports Mole Writers' Awards, while Erling Braut Haaland is named the best.

Tottenham Hotspur's Richarlison has been named the Worst Premier League Signing of the Season for 2022-23 in the Sports Mole Writers' Awards.

The 26-year-old joined Spurs from Everton last summer in a deal worth up to £60m, but struggled to live up to that price tag as Tottenham suffered a tumultuous campaign.

Richarlison started just 12 Premier League games all season and managed just one goal during his time on the pitch in the top flight - that coming in the 4-3 defeat to Liverpool in April.

Indeed, the Brazilian held the rare distinction of picking up more yellow cards for celebrating goals than actual goals in 2022-23, being booked three times for taking his shirt off in celebration and two of those goals later being ruled out by VAR.

The one goal which stood also proved to be in vain, with his dramatic late equaliser to complete a three-goal comeback against Liverpool being almost immediately cancelled out by an even later Diogo Jota winner.

Richarlison's travails in 2022-23 saw him earn 35% of the votes in our category for worst signing of 2022-23, seeing him beat Leeds United's Georginio Rutter to the unwanted prize.

Chelsea duo Mykhaylo Mudryk and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang - the latter of whom was voted the worst signing of the season by our readers - were also among the players to pick up the most votes, while Arthur Melo, Kalvin Phillips and Wout Faes earned a vote apiece too.

Manchester City's Erling Braut Haaland celebrates with the Golden Boot on May 28, 2023 © Reuters

By contrast, the award for the best signing of the season was unsurprisingly won by Erling Braut Haaland, who marked his debut season in England by winning the treble with Manchester City.

The Norway international broke all sorts of scoring records along the way too, including registering the most goals ever in a single Premier League campaign with 36.

Haaland, who has also been named the overall Premier League Player of the Season and Forward of the Season by our team of reporters, took 75% of the votes for the best signing.

Fulham's Joao Palhinha finished second in the category, while Manchester United's Casemiro and Morgan Gibbs-White of Nottingham Forest were the only other players to be chosen.