Exiled striker Richarlison has been making his presence known amid Tottenham's poor start to the new Premier League season, posting on Instagram hours after their defeat to Aston Villa.

Richarlison was set to depart north London this summer but a move never materialised, and the Brazilian has now been kept out of Tottenham's first-team squad.

In the latest twist to what is turning out to be a protracted saga, Richarlison took to social media on Saturday within hours of Tottenham's 3-2 defeat to Villa to post videos of himself training.

He captioned the video of him undertaking drills: 'The focus remains'. His second post was another video of him undergoing sprint training, accompanied by the caption: '35.4km/h - I broke my record'.

Richarlison's future in north London has become increasingly uncertain after a proposed transfer to Brazilian side Vasco da Gama fell through last week.

He hasn't made a matchday squad in the top flight since the opening-day defeat to Brentford, while he was also left out of Roberto De Zerbi's squad for their away loss to Liverpool in the third round of the Carabao Cup earlier this week.

His absence has been compounded by Tottenham's lack of goals this season, with Spurs scoring only their first two league goals of the campaign against Villa on Saturday through Conor Gallagher and Jan Paul van Hecke. However, they came too late to influence the result as Tottenham lost 3-2.

On Tuesday, Richarlison shared a screenshot of a social media post about his omission and accompanied it with the message 'Why?' and a tearful sad-faced emoji.

De Zerbi has stood firm on Richarlison's absence, however, saying on Monday: 'At the start of this season, I spoke to him (Richarlison) many times to convince him to stay and he didn't want to.

'I can't go every day to pray for him to stay.

'What I have done at the beginning of this season has been to speak with him and to propose an extension of the contract. If he said, 'no thank you,' I finished my job.

'I know what happened in the last 45 days. It's not right if I explained. It's not my behaviour. The relationship, the problem is between the player and the club.'

Richarlison also had a proposed £35million deadline-day transfer to Everton collapse after the forward failed to agree personal terms with the Toffees.

He was subsequently left out of Spurs' Premier League squad amid a dispute between him and the club over the remaining nine months of his contract, according to BBC Sport.

Richarlison, Spurs' top scorer with 11 Premier League goals last season, remains in north London and trains with De Zerbi's squad, except when they are undertaking tactical work.

The 29-year-old signed for Tottenham from Everton in 2022 for £60million.