Why Tottenham's Son Heung-Min Deserves Way More Respect
Many Tottenham fans feared the worst at the start of this season, but Ange Postecoglou's side have defied all the naysayers with a brilliant start to the season. But while the manager and new signing James Maddison have stolen the majority of the headlines, it's actually been Son Heung-min, appointed captain in the wake of Harry Kane, who deserves the most credit.
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00:00 Hello everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here and do you know who isn't getting the level
00:09 of respect they deserve right now?
00:11 Hyung-Min Son.
00:12 Like I know he's probably still regarded as one of the Premier League's best attackers
00:16 and one of the most dangerous forwards in Europe but there was just, there was a lot
00:20 of stuff said about him last season when his form wasn't particularly good that I don't
00:24 think is really being addressed or corrected now.
00:27 And I, as somebody who will admit, saw him a few times last season and thought "Urgh,
00:32 might be getting near the end of the road for you there, buddy" would just like to correct
00:36 all of that because he's been brilliant this season and nobody's really talking about it.
00:41 Alright, so what's brought all this on Adam, this uncharacteristic heartfelt generosity?
00:48 Well, I was watching the North London Derby and this happened.
00:52 You may remember this was the Brennan Johnson chance where David Rye made that amazing save
00:56 but in the build-up Hyung-Min Son, who was playing centre-forward as he has been doing
01:00 in Postakoglou's side, drops off from the retreating Arsenal back four as the play advances,
01:06 receives the ball in a deeper position and plays it around the corner to get Kulishevski
01:10 in.
01:11 Now Spurs fans, you have seen that exact passage of play about, let me do the maths, a billion
01:17 times over the last couple of years but it was always Harry Kane making that exact movement
01:21 away from the defenders to receive the ball in that exact area to play that exact pass,
01:26 albeit on the other side, into Son.
01:29 And that just sort of struck me as quite interesting, like he's been asked to play in the middle
01:32 to fill the gap left by Harry Kane and there he is doing one of Harry Kane's trademarks
01:37 but it did get me thinking.
01:38 If you look at where Son ranks in the Premier League for the number of chances he created,
01:42 let's say between Spurs' best run of 2015 to 2019, he's never anywhere close to being
01:48 one of the more creative players in the league.
01:50 Instead what he was always best at, and Spurs fans how nostalgic is this, to look at was
01:54 getting into the space vacated by Harry Kane when he would drop away from the forward line
01:59 when Dele Alli would then come across to fill that space or just directly going up to play
02:03 alongside him, benefiting from Kane's creativity either as a space provider or as just someone
02:07 to lay on chances.
02:08 He was quick, he was direct, he's absolutely lethal, he was perfect to play in this wide
02:13 left position when you've got a team around you who are all individually capable of helping
02:18 put things on for you.
02:19 Which is why even just that small moment in the North London derby was so weird to see
02:23 because you have, you've seen it a million times if you're a Spurs fan, just the exact
02:27 opposite way round.
02:28 But like I say, it got me thinking, is Son now someone who's really good at creating
02:34 chances and I looked at the numbers and holy f***.
02:41 So these are Son's passing stats from the entirety of last season's Premier League campaign.
02:46 As you can see, the overall numbers themselves aren't terrible but in terms of where that
02:50 ranks in the league, he was really, really poor on the ball.
02:53 The very short read of that graph is he wasn't passing particularly often and even when he
02:57 was, he wasn't doing it particularly well.
02:59 Now just before I show you this, keep in mind it's a small sample size.
03:04 This season we've only played six games, I'm sure this will change a lot over the course
03:08 of the season but also, take a breath.
03:11 This is how Son's passing ranks in the Premier League this season.
03:15 He is currently, without exception, currently the most effective on the ball forward in
03:20 the Premier League this season.
03:22 Now just because I have to be fair and balanced about all this, I don't want us getting too
03:26 carried away, it's worth pointing out if you look at the actual numbers themselves down
03:30 the middle rather than just the percentile points in the ranking, they're not wildly
03:35 different.
03:36 But this is the Premier League, my friends.
03:37 The margins are super, super fine.
03:39 So even if your pass completion is only going up 7 or 8%, that is still a huge amount for
03:47 it to be going up.
03:48 Now that's all well and good, having loads and loads of passes, but you can't just have
03:52 passes for the sake of having passes.
03:55 Is he actually using this newfound ability, this newfound time on the ball to impact Tottenham
04:02 going forward?
04:03 And here's the real stat.
04:06 Heung-Min Son, last season, live shot creating actions.
04:10 That's basically anything you do with a football on a football pitch that isn't a dead ball
04:15 that leads to a chance being created for a teammate.
04:19 He was very average.
04:21 Heung-Min Son, this season, live shot creating actions.
04:24 He is number one out of all the forwards in the Premier League.
04:29 Nobody at that top end of the pitch is making more things happen for their teammates than
04:35 he is.
04:36 And just to clarify here, last season, he was playing in a wide attacking position where
04:40 part of your responsibility is to create chances for your teammates.
04:45 And now he is playing centre forward where part of your responsibility is not really
04:50 to create chances for your teammates.
04:51 It's to get chances for yourself.
04:53 And he has still doubled the number of chances he is creating.
04:57 But you see, this is the real reason why I wanted to do a video just giving him the credit
05:02 he is due because that clip we showed earlier, that's not a shot creating action.
05:07 Kulishevsky doesn't get a shot away in that situation.
05:09 Instead, Arsenal do actually manage to slow his run down pretty well.
05:12 The defender squares him up on the edge of the box and a chance is only created because
05:16 Son himself, after having already dropped deep, fallen 10, 20 yards away from the attacking
05:22 line to put Kulishevsky in, then makes the run required to get on the overlap and provide
05:28 that cut back for Brennan Johnson.
05:30 In one single move, you get to see the absolute best about what Heung-Min Son is now doing
05:35 in his new role at Tottenham.
05:37 And then five seconds later, you get to see the absolute best of what Heung-Min Son used
05:41 to do in his old role at Tottenham.
05:44 When Harry Kane left for Bayern Munich, everybody knew there was this huge void that was going
05:49 to need to be filled at Spurs.
05:50 Not just in terms of the number of goals he scored, but certainly in terms of the type
05:54 of goals he scored, the clutch goals, the improbable goals, the goals that bailed him
05:59 out of tough situations, and his overall link of play, his ability to read a game and drop
06:04 from the centre-forward area to create space for his teammates and create chances.
06:09 And there was talk of Richarlison playing there because his link of play is excellent,
06:12 his reading of a game is great, his movement is really good, and there was talk of buying
06:15 another centre-forward who could possibly add those goals that they were going to miss.
06:19 But deep down, the real answer, the one player who solves both of these problems improbably
06:25 is Son.
06:26 He creates that chance for Brennan Johnson, and yes, he's creating loads of other chances
06:30 for his teammates, but look at the two goals he actually scores in the North London derby.
06:34 In the first, after Maddison wriggles free of Saka, he just waits that extra second before
06:39 making his run to the near post.
06:41 It allows a tiny little bit of room to develop, and if you just freeze it here, at the exact
06:46 moment he strikes the ball from this camera angle, the gap he has to hit to get that clear
06:51 of all three Arsenal defenders is genuinely, he's got about an inch either side.
06:57 That is an unbelievable finish.
07:00 It's the exact kind of "God, how's he managed that goal that Harry Kane always used to score?"
07:04 And for the second goal, it's subtle, I'll grant you, but when Maddison presses Jorginho,
07:09 the position Son has taken up here stops him playing a forward ball off to this side and
07:14 a ball sideways to a teammate, making him get his feet in a muddle and allowing Maddison
07:18 to win the ball.
07:19 And then he doesn't get a rush of blood, he doesn't run into the wrong position, he doesn't
07:22 try and do anything too complicated, he just receives the ball and very calmly, under the
07:27 highest pressure by the way, because they're now 2-1 down, slots it into the far corner.
07:32 It's the exact kind of "Wow, what a natural finisher, he is goal, Harry Kane used to score."
07:37 There has quite rightly been so much praise for Tottenham this season.
07:41 I think they've been the best team in the entire league to watch so far, but the vast
07:45 majority of that praise has been lumped at the door of Ange Postakoglu and James Maddison.
07:50 And again, quite rightly, Postakoglu has done an amazing job, the way he's got the team
07:53 to buy into things is unbelievable, none of this would be happening without him, and Maddison
07:58 has clearly been the spark they needed to get a more creative edge back in the team
08:02 to allow them to try all these new things.
08:05 These two deserve the praise they're getting, undoubtedly.
08:08 But Spurs could so easily, and quite forgivably I would argue, have become one of those teams
08:13 that are really good to watch and are clearly playing a great round of football, but the
08:17 results just aren't quite there yet.
08:20 You've seen it a hundred times, it probably should have been them.
08:23 But so far the results have been there because they still have this cutting edge that the
08:27 rest of the teams in the league don't have, and that cutting edge is Son.
08:32 So yeah, I'm not a Tottenham fan, but I am really, really happy for Son.
08:36 I thought some of the stuff that was written about him last season, being finished and
08:39 being over the hill, I know he should probably go to Saudi now, looks about the right time.
08:42 I just thought it was a bit premature and if I'm honest, slightly disrespectful.
08:47 So I'm really pleased to see him playing this well this season, and hopefully he goes on
08:51 to have an absolute biner of a year.
08:53 But yes, I know the Tottenham fans are very eager to get your thoughts in the comments
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