There are still voices in the UK that do not recognize Son Heung-min.
Tottenham drew 1-1 against Leicester City in the first round of the English Premier League (EPL) in 2024-2025 season at 4 a.m. on the 20th (Korea time). Tottenham faced a disappointing result against Leicester, their promotion team.
There were two overall problems for Tottenham in the game. First, in the first half, it was a goal-scoring and closing pass in attack. Tottenham made several very good attack scenes centered on Son Heung-min and James Maddison. He often created situations close to scoring or good shooting chances. If you look at the first half alone, it was Tottenham's one-sided game.
Despite the unilateral development, Tottenham only scored the first goal of full-back Pedro Porro, not the striker. Considering that the number of shots between Tottenham and Leicester in the first half is 10-1, Tottenham should have made at least two goals apart.
The second big problem was the tactical limitations of Postecoglou. Leicester couldn't respond to Tottenham tactics at all in the first half. However, as they adapted to Tottenham's tactics in the second half, Leicester began to raise the flag of counterattack. Even before Jamie Vardy's equalizer, Tottenham had several dangerous situations. Looking at the number of shots in the second half alone, Leicester had six and Tottenham had five.
Tottenham followed up on last season's problems in the second half. The biggest problem is the connectivity between the rear and the front. Coach Postecoglou's build-up method, which raises the fullback to the offensive midfielder position, has also become a prey of opposition pressure. When the ball was developed only in the center, Leicester interfered with Tottenham by building pressure and blocks in the center.
Tottenham had no players to develop the ball while breaking directly through the opponent's organization, and no one to connect the ball to the second line with a fantastic pass from the back. This is a problem that Tottenham has been pointed out continuously since last season. Postecoglou failed to make any tactical improvements or changes.
Against Leicester, it was equally shown that he was forced to deploy the ball in the center and allowed a counterattack to cause a crisis. It caused several dangerous scenes when facing Bayern Munich in the pre-season, but it is still not improving.
There were also individual problems. In particular, right wing Brennan Johnson showed the most sluggish performance since his debut at Tottenham. Rodrigo Bentancur and Papemata Sarr seemed to lack something to take charge of the team's midfield. The return of Eve Bissouma didn't feel like a problem to improve. This is why Tottenham fans want a high-quality midfielder No. 6.
Tottenham has a lot of these problems, and Son Heung-min has become the target of criticism, not criticism.When the team did not receive satisfactory results, it was an unstoppable phenomenon that the arrow of criticism was directed at the superstar, but it was too much.
Now, the first official game of the 2024-2025 season has been played, and there has been a controversy over blind criticism that Son Heung-min should be brought down to the bench and placed on the release list.
"Is Coach Postecoglou ready to exclude Son from the starting list?" British Football 365 said on the 21st. "His career is not on the rise. He was a great player at Tottenham, but he started to feel like he was in the past. Now Son Heung-min cannot be considered an absolute player" he began to criticize blindly.
So why does Football 365 think Son Heung-min should be an absolute player at Tottenham. As expected, the grounds were poor.
The media reported that `Son Heung-min always topped the starting list. Starting in the last 34 league games, Son Heung-min has not played for more than 60 minutes and the only one missing was when he was replaced in the 58th minute against Newcastle United. No other striker came close to Son's playing time, questioning Son's playing time.
And then 'Son Heung-min played 2,948 minutes in the EPL last season. Dejan Kulusevski played 200 minutes less and James Maddison, who decided a lot of time due to injury, is well behind the playing time list. This needs to change. Son remains a perfectly viable option for Tottenham's various ways of attacking but now he has to look like another of many options. There should be no question,' he added.
The reason why Son Heung-min plays more time than other strikers is that he performed more overwhelmingly than his competitors. No Tottenham player was close to 17 goals and 10 assists in the league last season. Hishalisson and Johnson have 15 offensive points, about half of Son Heung-min's.
Kulusevski and Madison, exemplified by Football 365, were players who were criticized a lot for being very sluggish in the second half of last season. Can Kulusevski and Madison score more goals and record more help just because they play longer than Son Heung-min. Coldly, no player in Tottenham now has better offensive point productivity than Son Heung-min.
Football 365 says 'This claim is a furious reaction to Tottenham's disappointing night, but not entirely. We have included Son Heung-min in the list of players to be transferred from each club this summer,' he continued with a strange argument.
In addition, Son Heung-min has only scored five goals in 15 league games since the 2023 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup, and he criticized that two goals and two assists are all he has in the last 10 games. He even claimed to have Wilson O'Doubert, who scored three league goals and three assists in Burnley last season, and Son Heung-min. It was a claim that was only seen as an indiscriminate criticism of the league's best striker.
rlaeotlr2024@sportschosun.com
