Player Watch Player Watch: Son Heung-min

Did well to stay on the pitch for 70mins today.

Must have been his twin brother out there today, the one that can’t play football!!

Either that or he had some serious man flu as well

southlondonyiddo said:

Did well to stay on the pitch for 70mins today.

Must have been his twin brother out there today, the one that can’t play football!!

Either that or he had some serious man flu as well

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Is was heavily marked to be fair but yeah, should have done better.

He was a bag of shit today..Miles off recent performances

I thought he was okay, no more or less.
I thought Alli was too slow with the ball today and should have been substituted instead.
As Graham Taylor was continually reminded of to his dying day, never take off your goal scorers when you need a goal, added caveat, when they're doing okay.

I do wish he'd be a bit more highly regarded sometimes though and I hope we put as much belief in him as we do that of our other 'star' players because Alli could have played ten times worse than he actually did yesterday and Son still would have been taken off before him. Definitely would have liked it if we had more of a mindset like 'you're one of our top performing players now so even if you're playing badly we're gonna keep you on in case you do something special'. I dunno, I just feel he's kind of earned that right a bit more recently.

Even though he was playing badly, there were a few times near the end where Alli had space but had the ball on his left foot, Sissoko had a few openings but was too scared to shoot and Lamela had a or a couple of chances and in all of those situations even if not playing greatly I'd rather have Son on the ball than any of them.

He was one of the players who tried to play through the illness Hugo and Christian had...

his assist today was brilliant

One of the first name in starting XI team sheet for the next 3 games.

Friend met sonny yesterday and he said he’s the first footballer he has ever met who came to them and said SELFIE SELFIE laughing and joking!

Also picked on the boys shirt who had kane on the back and said ...always kane always kane eyh no sonny?! (his son now wants you can guess what a sonny shirt). Mate said he was electric proper fun to be around.

Woodyy said:

Son, left, went to Germany as a teenager with Kim Min-hyuk and Kim Jong-pil

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Racists!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/02/10/son-heung-min-spurs-not-so-secret-weapon/

Why Son Heung-min is Tottenham's not-so-secret weapon

Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen and Harry Kane tend to get the majority of acclaim for Tottenham's winning performances but Son Heung-min has quietly become an established, integral and hugely underrated part of their attack.

Mauricio Pochettino had to convince the £22million signing to stay at Spurs rather than seek first team football elsewhere after a difficult first season, and was rewarded as the South Korean won two Premier League Player of the Month awards, scored 14 goals and provided six assists in 34 appearances in 2016/17.

He's already scored eight and assisted four in 25 games this season and is a player Arsenal must be acutely aware of if they are to come away with a result against Spurs on Saturday.

The perfect counter-attack player
Son's explosive pace and positional sense are his greatest strengths. Always able to find and win space to play, his close control and clinical finishing make him a deadly forward, and one perfect for Spurs' counter-attacking style of play.

His goal in a 4-1 win over Liverpool in October showcased all of it. In a 3-4-3 he was occasionally on the right, sometimes the left-sided forward behind Kane. Here, Spurs steal the ball in midfield and move forward quickly. Kane has the ball on the break.


Son has already made about five yards on James Milner (in the centre-circle).


Kane draws Matip wide, James Milner is chasing Son and cannot get close to him, like watching a motorbike race a lorry, or more accurately, a fast human racing James Milner.


Son has the composure and quality to finish the bouncing ball, smashing it low past Simon Mignolet with a controlled side-foot effort, laced with power. Without that lightning pace, this goal doesn't happen.


Unselfish running off the ball
Arsenal's tendency to focus on attack has often been their downfall, over-committing and losing the ball with too many players too high up the pitch. They will have to carefully manage Son's movement to avoid this weakness being exploited.


Here Spurs win a turnover during the 5-2 win over Southampton in January. Alli receives the ball and looks to start the counter.

Son is the left-winger but realises that in order to disjoint Southampton, he needs to run off the ball to distract defenders and create space.


With nobody on the right wing in a position to stretch the Southampton defence and pull centre-backs apart to give the strikers some room, Son sprints across the pitch through Alli's running path. Kane pulls out to the left. Southampton defenders try to follow their men rather than watch the space.


By the time Alli reaches the final third a second or so later, the defence is all out of sorts. Kane is the obvious threat off-the-ball, Son goes wide right to draw the defender out.


It's almost as if Southampton are more worried about Alli and Kane and fail to properly follow Son. Alli threads a pass to feet, Son controls and sets up the shot.


He executes a perfect finish, drilling the ball low into the bottom corner. Not only has Son facilitated the space necessary to make this move work, the panic caused by Kane and Alli's presence has allowed him to float into a goalscoring position.


Positional flexibility
Two footed and able to play in a variety of positions, unlike many other versatile forwards (Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain a prime example), Son's flexibility makes him a first choice rather than dependable reserve simply because he's so good in every role he is handed.

Son allows Spurs' forward players to drift from their designated positions and confuse opposition defences. Kane likes to drop into the 10 space, Alli often moves to wide positions and Eriksen falls deep into midfield regularly - Son fills the gap without thinking about it.

He understands exactly where to be and when. Here against Southampton he's the left inside-forward, but hugs the wing as the Spurs left-back is closer to the halfway line.


Spurs play through the middle, Son maintains his position.


Alli turns and Southampton defenders close him down. Son - totally off the radar - makes his move.


His starting position is so wide of the ball that the defenders don't realise he's the real danger in this move until it's too late. Son is too quick for anyone to react to him and sprints in behind the full-back onto Alli's through-pass.


Son passes first time across the six yard box and hands Kane a tap-in. It's a flowing team move made possible by smart positional play, capitalising on lapses of concentration by the opposition - precisely the kind of goal that Arsenal are guilty of conceding.


The only Arsenal player to have scored more league goals than Son this season is Alexandre Lacazette but they will focus on preventing Kane from hitting the back of the net before sending man to stop Son. Alli has more assists to his name (seven) and creates more chances (49 to 30 this season) and will be a watched man too. But it is Son's selfless off-the-ball movement and clinical finishing that makes him Spurs' most dangerous counter-attacking outlet.

If Arsenal are guilty of sending too many players forward against their great rivals, Son will be there to punish them on the counter-attack as Spurs' not-so-secret weapon. Arsene Wenger beware.

I love Son but... he has been seriously below par for the last month, culminating in yesterday's performance where he just didn't seem to want to compete for the ball against the tough northern types.
Left us short of fire power and over dependent on Kane.
What is to be done? Lamela has done well- great in Turin- but isn't the goal threat Sonny is?
Perhaps it will hasten us back to three at the back with Toby back in? Time for that to happen i think, even if Toby was below par yesterday too.

Since everyone started saying how good he was he's been terrible.

In poor form at the moment but he will come through it and start banging them in again for us.

I think both Son and Kane are guilty of being a little too greedy at times and would actually be even better players if they looked up a little more often in the way Man City strikers do. I think as a team we would score way more goals that way.

I think he needs a rest. He has been playing a lot in the past month or so. Dele and Eriksen gets a breather but Son Usually starts or is the first sub from the bench.

I think He has been unlucky. Had quite a few decent chances but couldn't put them away. He is still one of the few players who always looks to take on defenders to try and beat them for pace.

He still puts in a decent shift for the team.

All players have bouts of bad form. It's very good that we now have a squad that can handle one or two players running a bit cold.

His movement and speed is incredible.

That second goal was amazing. Not many players in the world could reach that Kane pass and then score.

When he puts the afterburners on, no defender can catch him.

I brought him into my fantasy team a few weeks ago, then his form started to slump a little, I had clearly cursed him.

So yesterday i traded him out, and he scores a brace.

Curse lifted.

Clark28 said:

I brought him into my fantasy team a few weeks ago, then his form started to slump a little, I had clearly cursed him.

So yesterday i traded him out, and he scores a brace.

Curse lifted.

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Thank you