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Even Harvey White. Nice left peg, get him delivering the ball across the box - poss from LWB with Perisic in the front 3 where he has most impact
That is so-so simplistic.
First of all - everything is connected.
How well we maintain possession in front 3 has impact on everything. Every time we give ball away, opposition team can come to attack our vulnerable defense. So more times possession lost (and looking at whole season, Son has given it away A LOT) by forward players = more pressure on defense = more goals leaked.
Also - front 3 players have to close down the opposition players. But Son has been pretty poor in this aspect as well. Just see what Richie does while he is on the field... So to conclude - Sonny giving away the ball and not pressing opposition does lead to more goals conceded. And he has scored in 2 games out of 19 appearences, so his positive contribution is not outweighing the negative this season.
Yes, but historcally he has been far exceeding his xG figures, not been "behind it". That is what have made him so lethal, so valuable. He is not doing that this season unfortunately.Son Heung-Min | Tottenham | xG | Shot Map | Goal stats | Understat.com
Son Heung-Min football stats. xG, shot map, match history. Minutes, goals and assits by club, position, situation.understat.com
Son’s xG this season is 3.65, which is only marginally more than his number of goals scored.
I agree he’s been subpar this season but he’s not had great supply either.
The blame this season lies far more with defenders who keep giving away goals with awful mistakes.
Also as a winger, he has to be able to create chances for himself and others. But in this he has failed this year. He only has 2 assists to teammates which is not enough from this position really. It could be if on top of it he would have scored a bunch. Which he hasnt.
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Anyhow - point is - Son main value and contribution has been his ability to score goals and at times creating goals for others. In the end he has 76 assists on top of 136 goals for us. But this season he has done either.
Scored in 2 games out of 19 and assisted also in 2. Having any kind of goal contribution in 4 games out of 19.
Overall he has scored or assisted once every 226 minutes on field. Which is not nearly enough. But it makes it even worse that his goals have come in 2 games, if he would have scored once in 5 different games, I guess perception would have been more positive.
But with performances like we've seen from him, he absolutely should not start games anymore.
Why not try to use him as impact sub on 65th minute? Look how the Leicester game went. Why not try some more of this. Cause him starting is not working and everyone should see that by now.
These are all fair points and on current form I’d want Rich rotating with Son when he’s back from injury so there’s real competition at LW.
However I don’t think he’s as bad as the critics say, and I think he gets singled out far too much.
Part of the issue may be that since his golden boot season, he gets marked more heavily which creates more space for others but impacts his personal stats. This could partly explain why our overall goal stats are good despite only 3 from Sonny.
I agree with this and I think it’s partly down to our playing style too. We start games without any spark and that doesn’t work well for Sonny. We’re passive, slow, unimaginative and we have no drive to score so those runs in behind that he likes to make are taken out of his game as there’s nobody in the middle third trying to play the ball forward.
He does seem brighter in the second half, but the team as a whole are just not playing well, it’s not just Sonny.
Still haven't given up on him but we've reached a pretty critical point form wise where he can't be carried any longer & needs to sit on the bench for a while which might help him re-capture some form. Richarlison being back from injury will be helpful but not a huge fan of him at LW tbh. Feel like he's not tricky or dynamic enough, good rotation CF though.
Someone like Leao is the dream but not happening ... but a player along those lines who can add pace & trickery to our frontline would be ideal. If Diaz transfer had happened we'd have a perfect mix of attackers atm imo.
Someone like Leao is the dream but not happening ... but a player along those lines who can add pace & trickery to our frontline would be ideal. If Diaz transfer had happened we'd have a perfect mix of attackers atm imo.
Sonny is overdue a run of goals. Looked like he was shooting every look he got vs Brentford, thinking he’s getting a couple of great chances at home v Villa
Most of those goals scored come in the 2nd half or after we have conceded. We need the attack to start the match, get a lead and take the pressure off the defence. We never looked like scoring on Monday until the goal came after an hour. After that we could have scored more.
Sonny isnt the same as he was last season, but I have to believe its partly down to how we play in the first half this season. We have no attacking identity if we aren't two goals down.
Pretty sure son has zero PL goals in the 13 games he’s started. 3 in the 1 game as a sub.
Do the rest.
Do the rest.
and thats from a player who offers you not much else unless its goals or assists. hes not picked for his ball retention ability, his creativity in the buildup or his ruthless pressing where he regains possession for us.
them 13 games weve basically had 10 men. how many extra points would we have if gil had started them 13 games?
Need to reboot Sonny again. Take out the cartridge and blow in it.
He simply looks knackered to me. Him, Kane and Hojbjerg have played far too much in the last seasons but with the injuries to Lucas and Richarlison we have no real choice. The choice is between him and Gil right now. Unless you want to play Perisic as a forward (which we already tried and it was meh).
Perisic plays LW for Croatia.
Start him there w/ Sessegnon at LWB and sub on Sonny around '60 for either depending on situation... Perisic off, or to LWB and Sess off.
the choice is between him and gil now but conte has played son in favour of rich and kulu this season when it was clear he needed to be dropped. he dropped kulu instead of son when any mug could see kulu was our best player. hes tried to play him into form but sons not the type of character that will work with, you see that by the amount of times his eyes are wet. hes the sort of person that you will make worse by not pulling him out.
his best performance has come after he was dropped! then next game he went back to the same son thats started every game this season. he needs to be dropped for his own good.
You are mixing causation here.
We have no attacking identity in big part because Son is not pitching in. Not with goals. Not with assists. Not with dribbles. Not with ball retention. Not with pressing.
Son game is not caused by our poor attacking play.
Our poor attacking play is caused by Son not contributing at all.
There are countless examples from this season, when he is fed very decent pass, but he fails to control it. How is that on our attacking play and not on Son personally?
An interesting article on his struggles in the Athletic today. I think these paragraphs are actually the answer.
It doesn’t help that Spurs are the worst team in the top flight for falling behind in matches.
They’ve conceded the first goal in their past six games in the league and nine in a row across all competitions.
That invites the opposition to sit back and protect their lead, meaning fewer counter-attacks for Tottenham, who are having to play higher up the field with the ball as they try to break their opponents down.
A classic Son goal would be latching on to a through ball, probably from Kane, advancing towards goal and slotting it past the ’keeper. He’s done it time and again.
Three of the five goals he has scored this season have come via this route — ie, receiving a pass either beyond the last line of defence or just in front of it.
theathletic.com
It doesn’t help that Spurs are the worst team in the top flight for falling behind in matches.
They’ve conceded the first goal in their past six games in the league and nine in a row across all competitions.
That invites the opposition to sit back and protect their lead, meaning fewer counter-attacks for Tottenham, who are having to play higher up the field with the ball as they try to break their opponents down.
A classic Son goal would be latching on to a through ball, probably from Kane, advancing towards goal and slotting it past the ’keeper. He’s done it time and again.
Three of the five goals he has scored this season have come via this route — ie, receiving a pass either beyond the last line of defence or just in front of it.
Studying Son's collapse in form shows Spurs are missing more than just his goals
This is Son's worst-ever season for goals, and lots of his other metrics are also at their lowest point in the forward's Spurs career
theathletic.com
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I don't think he does. Regardless, his form has been utter wank from minute one of this season.
Kane, peh and benta have all looked muuuuch better despite working just as hard if not harder.
An interesting article on his struggles in the Athletic today. I think these paragraphs are actually the answer.
It doesn’t help that Spurs are the worst team in the top flight for falling behind in matches.
They’ve conceded the first goal in their past six games in the league and nine in a row across all competitions.
That invites the opposition to sit back and protect their lead, meaning fewer counter-attacks for Tottenham, who are having to play higher up the field with the ball as they try to break their opponents down.
A classic Son goal would be latching on to a through ball, probably from Kane, advancing towards goal and slotting it past the ’keeper. He’s done it time and again.
Three of the five goals he has scored this season have come via this route — ie, receiving a pass either beyond the last line of defence or just in front of it.
Studying Son's collapse in form shows Spurs are missing more than just his goals
This is Son's worst-ever season for goals, and lots of his other metrics are also at their lowest point in the forward's Spurs career
Very biased takeaway. Now excuse my straightforward wording, but let me conclusively debunk that statement that has no actual credibility AT ALL.
In current EPL season we also have four clean-sheet games (all 4 we won). All of which he started. And his return in those was still 0 goals and 1 assist.
Then there are games like
Southampton (behind 9 minutes; ahead 60 minutes)
Fulham (behind 0 minutes; ahead 50 minutes)
West Ham (behind 0 minutes; ahead 21 minutes)
All of those Son started and combined scored 0 and assisted 1.
In total - there have been 4 clean sheets + 3 games where we have not been behind significant time, and STILL IN THOSE GAMES HE HAS NOT SCORED.
Across all these games Son was on the field for 584 minutes out of which 575 minutes (which is more than 50% of his overall minutes in the EPL this season) we were either level or ahead of opposition and has 0 goals + 2 assists - so 1 goal contribution for 288 minutes on the field.
Conclusion; TL/DR -
1) Majority (minimum 575 minutes out of 1126) of the time he has been on the field, we have not been chasing the game.
2) From total 575 minutes of is playing time that we have been equal or ahead, he still has not scored.
So obviously this is not valid excuse.
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But thats not all. I would like to add another part from the same piece :
At Tottenham, his numbers are down across the board, not just for goalscoring.
As well as his current goals-per-90 number being the lowest of his senior career, his assists-per-90 one (0.16) is his worst since the 0.08 of his 2015-16 debut season with Spurs. His pass completion rate (69.1 per cent) and per-90 figures for successful dribbles (0.9), passes received (27.7) and loose balls recovered (2.5) are all at their lowest levels since he moved to White Hart Lane from Germany’s Bayer Leverkusen.
And they all matter, particularly dribbles and recoveries.
His dribbling numbers have previously been as high as 2.3 per game (2017-18 and 2019-20) and his recoveries have averaged at least four per 90 for the past four completed seasons in a row.
The data reflects the naked-eye test — Son’s not snapping away at and pressing defenders deep in their own territory, he’s not taking players on or gallivanting through the final third like he used to, he’s giving the ball away more, he looks less likely to score a goal or set one up.
So what do numbers say -
- he is not creating goals for teammates in form of assist nor dribbles
- his passing is poor and he is giving ball away due to that
- he is not contributing to win the ball back nearly enough - something he could very well do, even if we are chasing the game. But he is not.
Now if we sum up your quoted part and my quoted part, we can say that he is in fact NOT struggling due to us chasing games and HE IS NOT CONTRIBUTING himself.
Or in short - wake the fuck up, he is letting the team down much more than team is letting him down.
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