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?
00:12 Hyun Min-Seon.
00:13 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
00:25 think is really being addressed or corrected now.
00:28 And I as somebody who will admit he saw him a few times last season and thought "oh,
00:32 I 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.
00:42 Alright, so what's, what's brought all this on Adam?
00:46 This uncharacteristic heartfelt generosity?
00:49 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 Hyun Min-Seon 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, receives
01:06 the ball in a deeper position and plays it around the corner to get Kulishevski in.
01:11 Now Spurs fans you have seen that exact passage of play about, I'm going to do the maths,
01:17 a billion times over the last couple of years but it was always Harry Kane making that exact
01:21 movement away from the defenders to receive the ball in that exact area to play that exact
01:26 pass 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.
01:39 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 like 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 And what he was always best at and Spurs fans how nostalgic is this to look at was getting
01:55 into the space vacated by Harry Kane when he would drop away from the forward line when
01:59 Dele Alli would then come across to fill that space or just directly going up to play alongside
02:04 him benefiting from Kane's creativity either as a space provider or as just someone to
02:08 lay on chances.
02:09 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 which is why even just that small moment in the North London Derby
02:22 was so weird to see because you have you've seen it a million times if you're a Spurs
02:26 fan just the exact opposite way around but like I say it got me thinking is Son now someone
02:33 who's really good at creating chances and I looked at the numbers and holy f**k.
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.
02:54 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.
03:00 Now just before I show you this keep in mind it's a small sample size this season we've
03:04 only played six games I'm sure this will change a lot over the course of the season but also
03:10 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
03:21 the Premier League this season.
03:23 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 different
03:36 but this is the Premier League my friends the margins are super super fine so even if
03:40 your pass completion is only going up seven or eight percent that is still a huge amount
03:47 for it to be going up.
03:48 Now that's all well and good having loads and loads of passes but you can 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 and here's the real stat.
04:06 Jungmin Son last season live shot creating actions that's basically anything you do with
04:12 a football on a football pitch that isn't a dead ball that leads to a chance being created
04:18 for a teammate.
04:19 He was very average.
04:21 Jungmin Son this season live shot creating actions he is number one out of all the forwards
04:28 in the Premier League nobody at that top end of the pitch is making more things happen
04:34 for their teammates than he is.
04:36 And just to clarify here last season he was playing in a wide attacking position where
04:41 part of your responsibility is to create chances for your teammates and now he is playing centre
04:47 forward where part of your responsibility is not really to create chances for your teammates
04:52 it's to get chances for yourself and he has still doubled the number of chances he is
04:57 creating.
04:58 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.
05:10 Instead Arsenal do actually manage to slow his run down pretty well the defender squares
05:13 him up on the edge of the box and a chance is only created because Son himself after
05:18 having already dropped deep fallen 10-20 yards away from the attacking line to put Kulishevsky
05:23 in then makes the run required to get on the overlap and provide that cut back for Brennan
05:30 Johnson.
05:31 In one single move you get to see the absolute best of what Heung-Min Son is now doing in
05:36 his new role at Tottenham and then five seconds later you get to see the absolute best of
05:40 what Heung-Min Son used 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 not just in terms of the number of goals he scored but
05:53 certainly in terms of the type of goals he scored, the clutch goals, the improbable goals,
05:58 the goals that bailed him out of tough situations and his overall link of play, his ability
06:03 to read a game and drop from the centre forward area to create space for his teammates and
06:08 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
06:26 is Son.
06:27 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 he just frees 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
06:52 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
07:04 score.
07:05 And for the second goal it's subtle I'll grant you but when Maddison presses Jorginho the
07:09 position Son has taken up here stops him playing a forward ball off to this side and a ball
07:14 sideways to a teammate making him get his feet in a muddle and allowing Maddison to
07:19 win the ball.
07:20 Again 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 Andy Postakoglu and James Maddison.
07:50 And again quite rightly Postakoglu has done an amazing job, the way he's got the team
07:54 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
08:14 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 but so far the results
08:24 have been there because they still have this cutting edge that the rest of the teams in
08:29 the league don't have and that cutting edge is Son.
08:33 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 being
08:39 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 so I'm
08:48 really pleased to see him playing this well this season and hopefully he goes on to have
08:52 an absolute banger of a year.
08:54 But yes I know the Tottenham fans are very eager to get your thoughts in the comments
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