Son Heung-Min is the PFA Bristol Street Motors Fans’ Player of the Month for January. But in Tottenham’s first game of February, it was a new month and a possibly a glimpse at a new run of form.
Against Liverpool at Anfield, Tottenham perhaps should have won the game and on another day might have done. Coming from behind after just three minutes due to a horrible goal to concede, it looked all set for a Spurs comeback victory when Harry Kane stepped up to take a penalty just before the 90 minutes were up. Instead, it was his second attempt which was needed not to win the game but to salvage a point in a frantic end to the game.
But despite the fact that Tottenham could have won the game, there weren’t too many stand-out performances from their best players.
Kane wasn’t at his usual best, even though he came up with the late penalty, and nor was Son, a man who’s been on great form over the last few months.
Son didn’t complete the full game, but was subbed after 91 minutes. That means we can fairly accurately take his stats as numbers reflective of the whole game. In that time, Son took two shots – one on target, hit straight at Loris Karius when through one-on-one – and not much else.
His 19 completed passes gave him a pass accuracy of just 73%, one of the worst in the Spurs team. That by itself, though, shouldn’t be considered too much of an issue. Son nominally played in the right, but with Dele Alli on the other flank and cutting inside, Son spent most of his time trying to support Kane.
In that respect, however, he didn’t have a great deal of impact on the game. The South Korean made no key passes nor dribbles, and going the other way, he made no tackles nor interceptions throughout the entire game, as he struggled to get involved in a fast and furious game.
Son has had a good season to date, and one less-than-brilliant performance shouldn’t define him, but with Spurs facing Arsenal this weekend and Juventus in the Champions League, this could be a make or break part of the season. And Son will have to find his form again soon.