Son Heung-min and Yang Min-hyeok @ Tottenham Hotspur 2024-2025 [R]

Son Heung Min 🤝 Yang Min Hyuk

🇰🇷🤍 pic.twitter.com/O9jfvrffHU

— The Spurs Express (@TheSpursExpress) July 28, 2024

 

Everything you need to know about Yang Min-hyuk 🧵 pic.twitter.com/eNNnm20eYV

— Matt Hayes 🇮🇪 (@matthayesthfc) July 28, 2024

I liked this breakdown of Yang Min-Hyuk on Twitter. This level of detail to the analysis for this particular player was hard to find, even on Korean communities.

 

Excited for Yang.

I would guess he'll play some U21 ball at Spurs or loan out 2nd half of European season.

Hopefully he gets opportunity next season and not a multi-year loan situation...

 

Apparently Son Heung-Min was the fastest player aged 30 or above, in the English Premier League last season, ranked above the likes of Kyle Walker and Mohamed Salah. I do think his initial explosiveness and agility has suffered a lot over the years, but it seems his top pace is still nothing to scoff at.

 

The pressure on Yang himself must be immense...i dont envy that at all

 

Top Ten Players With The Most Left-Footed Goals In English Premier League History:

1. Mohamed Salah: 126
2. Robbie Fowler: 105
3. Robin van Persie: 94
4. Ryan Giggs: 83
5. Riyad Mahrez: 64
6. Romelu Lukaku: 60
7. Olivier Giroud: 50
8. David Silva: 49
9. Daniel Sturridge: 47
10. Heung-Min Son: 47

With his left-footed finish in the game versus Everton, Son Heung-Min now has 47 goals with his weaker left-foot. He is the only right-footed player on the list.

 

TBH, other than the goals and one good pass to Romero, he was almost invisible during the match. The ball never came to him most of the time.. When he got the ball, he tried to dribble past the defenders and he always failed...

 

It seems somewhat harsh to expect a footballer born in 1992 or older, to be a livewire all-action winger at the English Premier League level, whether that is the discussion surrounding Mohamed Salah, Wilian, or Son Heung-Min.

I would struggle to name five players of his age or above, who can still do that on a weekly basis. It's why so many players around his level and age group have left the league, and why he is basing his on-field contributions elsewhere.

 

yang min hyuk is not going to make it. he looks 5’7, maybe 5’8. he’s doomed as a FW in the premier league

 

Wasnt even talking about how lively he was. I was talking about the fact that he barely got the ball and he always lost his 1v1 against the defenders.

 

Yes. Something similar happened with Mohamed Salah also, and a lot of aging wingers that got forced out the league due to something similar happening. The potential bright side is that Son Heung-Min was never that reliant on dribbling to be effective as an attacker.

Son Heung-Min being not that big an outlier as a dribbling failure for his particular age group can be backed up by statistics from the last season. If you are comparing him to the freshest, youngest dribblers around the league, sure, I guess he is quite underwhelming in this regard.

2023/2024 EPL Players Aged 30 Or Above With The Most Successful Dribbles

1. Jordan Ayew: 52 successful dribbles (40% success rate)
2. Son Heung-Min: 39 successful dribbles (42.4% success rate)
3. Michael Antonio: 29 successful dribbles (46.8%)
4. Willian: 29 successful dribbles (46% success rate)
5. Mohamed Salah: 27 successful dribbles (35.1% success rate)

I think we pretty much agree on the issue, just a matter of perspective. If Son Heung-Min was merely an on-the-ball magician who had very little to offer outside of it, this predicament would have been an extremely worrying issue. I am sad to see him age, but I trust that he has more to show as a player.

There has been comments by those in the Korean media, mentioining the need for him to evolve more into an Antoine Griezmann-like player, somebody who can influence the game without being an on-the-ball magician, or a brute force of nature. Let's see if he can do this, because I think his all-around playmaking is evolving as his individual prowess as a penetrating force is declining.

 

It looks like Bentancur will finally receive a just punishment for his racist comment.

 

6-12 games?

Then how many games does Enzo Fernandez get? 30 games?

 

Is SHM physically unable to dribble past a defender 1v1 anymore?

Serious question since it doesn't even seem like he tries to do that, just passes or lays it off

 

What a shit show. I mentioned this multiple times even before Ange came to Spurs but Son as a winger under Ange does NOT work. 2 shots in the past 2-3 games for him says it all. Also today, he had only one fking shot out of the entire game, and even that one was out of frustration right before the final whistle.

Solanke should've at least scored/assisted in the 1st half. That open chance made by Son.... smh.

I also noticed he does not do that anymore. Been like that in the past 2 seasons or so. He's declining for sure, but Spurs can still utilize his main strength which is to score goals..

 

Not sure why he's not at least trying, I don't think it's tactics since Johnson and Kulusevski often try to dribble past 1v1

don't think it even matters if he's lost speed, I always thought what made him hard to defend 1v1 was SHM's elite two-footedness, can't tell if he's going to cross with one foot or cut and shoot with the other

 

TBH, his main strength has never been dribbling, so I am not surprised.

 

That was his main goto...he was always Off the Ball, breaking lines and great first touch. We all exclaimed here how Son should take lessons from Dele.

 

I don't think Son Heung-Min was ever world-class in terms of taking on defenders and twisting them into knots. He was okay at it, but it was not the fundamental basis of his game.

If you listen to members of the Korean national team, in isolation, like in a training session that is free from confounding factors like stamina, anticipation, positional awareness, and decision making with the ball, Nam Tae-Hee was always better than Son Heung-Min as a take-on artist.

However, I do think a younger version of Son Heung-Min was one of the most potent threats with the ball, when he was running at defenders. His level of dynamism with the ball, in conjunction with his final-third deadliness made him a threat you simply could not ignore.

I'll post some examples that might have been forgotten about, excluding the usual suspects like his famous goals versus Burnley and Chelsea.

https://mlbpark.donga.com/mp/b.php?...source=&pos=&sig=h6j9SYtY6hXRKfX2hfj9Rg-g4hlq

https://mlbpark.donga.com/mp/b.php?...source=&pos=&sig=h6j9Gg2Aj3eRKfX2hfj9Rg-g4hlq

https://mlbpark.donga.com/mp/b.php?...source=&pos=&sig=h6j9Sg-gh3aRKfX2hfj9Rg-g4hlq

In conjunction with his pace, dynamism, ball carrying threat, and range of deadly options in the final-third, Son Heung-Min was indeed one of the best I've seen in transitions.



It is why Jose Mourinho (who knows a thing or two about transitions) praised a younger Son Heung-Min for his transitional phase play, as seen in the beginning phases of the video above, before he managed Tottenham and was doing punditry work on television.

Now expecting him to be his dynamic younger self at this stage of his career seems somewhat harsh to me. Even if he has some pace left in the tank, what he was great at previously when he was at his dynamic prime, doesn't even quite fit into the current tactics used by Postecoglou.

 

SHM specifically mentioned this in an interview that he's to remain wide as a winger under Ange's system. Unfortunate but that's what Ange turned him into.

 

It's become Conte Ball 2.0 meaning using Sonny as the bait.

 

It's Brentford, but Spurs is playing pretty well so far. So many shots already. I like how Son is not played wide in this game.

 

Sigh.. lost all confidence it seems. Very poor today. Can't really say it was bc of tactics. He had a few chances to score himself too.