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Player Watch Player Watch: Son Heung-min

Kiedis

Well-Known Member
Aug 4, 2013
2,926
8,490
The way he's played since he got to sit out the international break in November has been absolutely Bale'esque. What a guy.
 

tooey

60% banana
Apr 22, 2005
5,228
7,948
It really annoys me when a commentator or pundit refers to him as "little", he's 6ft tall. Same with Eriksen actually.

Anyway, Son is just unbelievably good. If you were to create the ideal attacker from scratch you'd end up with Son. Tall, fast, tricky and genuinely 2 footed, runs for days and works back.
 

N17 Kebab

Well-Known Member
Sep 19, 2018
165
277
It really annoys me when a commentator or pundit refers to him as "little", he's 6ft tall. Same with Eriksen actually.

Anyway, Son is just unbelievably good. If you were to create the ideal attacker from scratch you'd end up with Son. Tall, fast, tricky and genuinely 2 footed, runs for days and works back.
Which is very tall for Korea. Can’t believe Eriksen is 6 foot
 

jurgen

Busy ****
Jul 5, 2008
6,710
17,167
Son is right up there with as the very best wide forwards in the league which is probably why we are still going strong despite losing two of our other best attackers. Aside from Salah and Hazard are there any other players in comparable positions who are operating at his level currently?
 

Shadydan

Well-Known Member
Jul 7, 2012
38,247
104,143
Son is right up there with as the very best wide forwards in the league which is probably why we are still going strong despite losing two of our other best attackers. Aside from Salah and Hazard are there any other players in comparable positions who are operating at his level currently?

Iwobi
 

carmeldevil

Well-Known Member
May 15, 2018
7,588
45,101
From The Athletic (subscription only)

Tottenham has been surviving its injury crisis by the finest of margins. Each of its last three league matches were tied past the 80th minute, and each time Tottenham found a late winner. On Saturday, the hero was Son Heung-min, whose long-distance striker somehow found its way under the fingers of Newcastle goalkeeper Martin Dubravka and into the Wembley net.


https://twitter.com/PerSON7a/status/1091700704526233600




As the video shows, this was a bit of a fluky goal. Son found a pocket of space outside the box with a deft touch and struck the ball cleanly, but the goalkeeper is strongly favored to make the save. Still, Son gave himself the chance to score by lashing a hard, dipping shot. Anyone who watches Son knows to anticipate a quality shot when he gets himself into space.

This is backed up statistically. Work by Marek Kwiatkowski to identify the best finishers in the game today placed Son among the top 10, surrounded by names like Eden Hazard, Yaya Toure, James Rodriguez and Leo Messi, which means that any evaluation of Son’s underlying statistics—his shot attempts and shot assists, and the expected goal value of these chances—needs to be adjusted for the fact that Son will finish a higher percentage of these chances than most players. And the underlying numbers have taken a big step forward, as well.


When Son came to Spurs for the 2015-16 season, he was considered a moderate disappointment, putting up just four goals and one assist in a little over 1,000 minutes. The thing is, this production was not that different from what he’d managed in the Bundesliga on a per-minute basis. With 11 goals and two assists for Bayer Leverkusen in 2014-15, and 10 and four the season before that in a total of about 5,200 minutes, his goal and assist numbers were at about 0.5 per 90 minutes, and he was outperforming his xG to get there. The production in that first season at Tottenham was pretty close to what the team could reasonably expect from him.

Most importantly, he had only just turned 23 when he arrived at Tottenham. Forwards typically peak around 26 or 27, and Son’s progress at Spurs has matched his age curve. Every year, Son found ways to get on the end of more and better chances. And over the last two seasons his production has been elite. Among players with at least 3,000 minutes played in the Premier League over the last two seasons, Son is in the top 10 in xG and xA per 90, behind mostly true strikers like Sergio Aguero, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and teammate Harry Kane. Because of his finishing skill, his own expected goal scoring is another 10 or 20 percent higher than these numbers project.

The South Korean forward’s development has mostly been a matter of refining his game. At Leverkusen, he already stood out for his combination of pace, power, and defensive work rate. What he’s done at Spurs is figure out how to use those tools to find space for shots inside the penalty area or time runs on the break. The style of play has not changed a lot, he has just improved his ability to read the game and time his actions, leading to the steady upward trajectory of his numbers.

The question for Son now is not about what he is. He’s developed into one of the best wide forwards in the game, and he has thousands of minutes at this level to prove it. Rather, the question is where his career goes next. Over the last couple years, as big money clubs have circled for Tottenham stars like Harry Kane, Christian Eriksen and Toby Alderweireld, Son has mostly been ignored. He signed a new five-year contract with the club last summer, so any team looking to pick him up would certainly have to pay Daniel Levy’s preferred market rate. But his profile screams “super-club target.”

Son is right at his peak age, with several seasons of production at this level still in front of him. He has made the leap working as a component in an attack, rather than for a team that built its attack to maximize his skills. And Son’s defensive work rate has remained high, even as he’s become an elite scorer. For a club like Bayern Munich, who need to turn over their aging wide forward corps, or Real Madrid, who need goalscorers who can fit into a superstar-studded squad, Son seems like an obvious target. Both teams are among the highest-pressing sides in their leagues, and a key component of Tottenham’s high press would be a good addition.

Tottenham may have to fend off major suitors for Son within the next year. At the same time, the lack of reported interest in Son suggests that perhaps his quality has not been properly priced by the market yet. Maybe as a support forward his production level has been under-appreciated. Maybe as a pace-and-power player from a country that hasn’t produced a star of his type before, he has been misread because of stereotypes. In any case, the evidence of a market for Son at the proper price point well north of £50 million is lacking. It may be that Spurs will get lucky and will not have to change anything at the point of attack.

But even if Spurs are never forced into a decision on him specifically, Son nonetheless embodies a broader question Tottenham will have to answer: The team’s stars have mostly entered their peak seasons, and in a couple years some of these players will be on the downslope. The club will need to determine which players should be cashed in before their transfer value begin to decline as they approach their 30s. No team can afford to depend too heavily on aging stars just based on the expected production decline, and a team like Spurs, still on the edges of elite revenue numbers, especially must protect itself financially with targeted sales.

For now, Tottenham fans can simply enjoy a second great forward and feel secure that, even without Harry Kane, the club has someone to turn to when it needs a goal. But starting this summer, Spurs will need to start gaming out some hard choices.
 

stevenurse

Palacios' neck fat
May 14, 2007
6,089
10,022
From The Athletic (subscription only)

Tottenham has been surviving its injury crisis by the finest of margins. Each of its last three league matches were tied past the 80th minute, and each time Tottenham found a late winner. On Saturday, the hero was Son Heung-min, whose long-distance striker somehow found its way under the fingers of Newcastle goalkeeper Martin Dubravka and into the Wembley net.





As the video shows, this was a bit of a fluky goal. Son found a pocket of space outside the box with a deft touch and struck the ball cleanly, but the goalkeeper is strongly favored to make the save. Still, Son gave himself the chance to score by lashing a hard, dipping shot. Anyone who watches Son knows to anticipate a quality shot when he gets himself into space.

This is backed up statistically. Work by Marek Kwiatkowski to identify the best finishers in the game today placed Son among the top 10, surrounded by names like Eden Hazard, Yaya Toure, James Rodriguez and Leo Messi, which means that any evaluation of Son’s underlying statistics—his shot attempts and shot assists, and the expected goal value of these chances—needs to be adjusted for the fact that Son will finish a higher percentage of these chances than most players. And the underlying numbers have taken a big step forward, as well.


When Son came to Spurs for the 2015-16 season, he was considered a moderate disappointment, putting up just four goals and one assist in a little over 1,000 minutes. The thing is, this production was not that different from what he’d managed in the Bundesliga on a per-minute basis. With 11 goals and two assists for Bayer Leverkusen in 2014-15, and 10 and four the season before that in a total of about 5,200 minutes, his goal and assist numbers were at about 0.5 per 90 minutes, and he was outperforming his xG to get there. The production in that first season at Tottenham was pretty close to what the team could reasonably expect from him.

Most importantly, he had only just turned 23 when he arrived at Tottenham. Forwards typically peak around 26 or 27, and Son’s progress at Spurs has matched his age curve. Every year, Son found ways to get on the end of more and better chances. And over the last two seasons his production has been elite. Among players with at least 3,000 minutes played in the Premier League over the last two seasons, Son is in the top 10 in xG and xA per 90, behind mostly true strikers like Sergio Aguero, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and teammate Harry Kane. Because of his finishing skill, his own expected goal scoring is another 10 or 20 percent higher than these numbers project.

The South Korean forward’s development has mostly been a matter of refining his game. At Leverkusen, he already stood out for his combination of pace, power, and defensive work rate. What he’s done at Spurs is figure out how to use those tools to find space for shots inside the penalty area or time runs on the break. The style of play has not changed a lot, he has just improved his ability to read the game and time his actions, leading to the steady upward trajectory of his numbers.

The question for Son now is not about what he is. He’s developed into one of the best wide forwards in the game, and he has thousands of minutes at this level to prove it. Rather, the question is where his career goes next. Over the last couple years, as big money clubs have circled for Tottenham stars like Harry Kane, Christian Eriksen and Toby Alderweireld, Son has mostly been ignored. He signed a new five-year contract with the club last summer, so any team looking to pick him up would certainly have to pay Daniel Levy’s preferred market rate. But his profile screams “super-club target.”

Son is right at his peak age, with several seasons of production at this level still in front of him. He has made the leap working as a component in an attack, rather than for a team that built its attack to maximize his skills. And Son’s defensive work rate has remained high, even as he’s become an elite scorer. For a club like Bayern Munich, who need to turn over their aging wide forward corps, or Real Madrid, who need goalscorers who can fit into a superstar-studded squad, Son seems like an obvious target. Both teams are among the highest-pressing sides in their leagues, and a key component of Tottenham’s high press would be a good addition.

Tottenham may have to fend off major suitors for Son within the next year. At the same time, the lack of reported interest in Son suggests that perhaps his quality has not been properly priced by the market yet. Maybe as a support forward his production level has been under-appreciated. Maybe as a pace-and-power player from a country that hasn’t produced a star of his type before, he has been misread because of stereotypes. In any case, the evidence of a market for Son at the proper price point well north of £50 million is lacking. It may be that Spurs will get lucky and will not have to change anything at the point of attack.

But even if Spurs are never forced into a decision on him specifically, Son nonetheless embodies a broader question Tottenham will have to answer: The team’s stars have mostly entered their peak seasons, and in a couple years some of these players will be on the downslope. The club will need to determine which players should be cashed in before their transfer value begin to decline as they approach their 30s. No team can afford to depend too heavily on aging stars just based on the expected production decline, and a team like Spurs, still on the edges of elite revenue numbers, especially must protect itself financially with targeted sales.

For now, Tottenham fans can simply enjoy a second great forward and feel secure that, even without Harry Kane, the club has someone to turn to when it needs a goal. But starting this summer, Spurs will need to start gaming out some hard choices.



So that article is basically saying he's brilliant but we need to think about selling him soon? What is the fascination with selling our players? Essentially saying that we've got to sell him as he approaches his peak because we cant afford for him to go downhill. So then what, we never have the peak years of any of our players just in case they begin to decline after?
 

WiganSpur

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
15,974
32,682
He's fast going down as one of my favourite players to have ever played for us now tbh. Up there with VDV. Got a great combination of care for the club, giving 100% with a touch of class to go with it.
 
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