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Son Heung-Min

Let’s not forget there is more than one way to skin a cat in regards to Royal. Yes he isn’t this fabulously marauding winger who beats three players before whipping in a perfect cross for us to score. But he does benefit our attacking play. For the first Fulham goal he won the ball high up near Fulham’s penalty box that led to Hojbergs goal. Against Southampton he won the ball deep in our half, then drove into the opposition half of the pitch to create the own goal vs Southampton. I’m sure there are other examples, I have a terrible memory. Conte isn’t stupid and obviously recognises he isn’t the most dynamic of attacking wingbacks, but clearly thinks he adds something to our attacking otherwise he wouldn’t be playing…..
Actually, I disagree about Royal being dynamic. I think he is -- he's certainly up and down the line, overlapping his winger. The problem is that his attacking decision making and execution is poor. If he tries 10 balls into the box, the chances are that not many of them will be any good -- unlike Trippier, for example.

But I do agree with your point.

Getting it back on to Son, he always works hard and occupies a defender or two, just because of the threat he carries -- an unmarked Son can (and has) hurt the best teams in the world. Which tires out the opposition, wins us some fouls/cards, and should lead to a bit more space for our other attackers.

But that's not to say that he shouldn't be benched -- based on the last few games, I think both Richi and Kulu should be ahead of him in the pecking order. I would like to see Conte give Son-Richi-Kulu a try at some point, with a view to subbing Kane on for one of them.
 
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No idea re Royal. Let’s see if he can get in the top 10 over the course of a season or two like Son has. Son is actually in the top 10 for chances created this season believe it or not. Now I wouldn’t for one moment point to that and use it as evidence to say he is playing well, but to say he does nothing other than score isn’t really true either is it? 3-4 years ago it was but he’s a more well-rounded player now.
But what justifies a chance created? Shouldn’t that be the minimum we expect from attacking players, creating chances? If son collects it on the wing, passes it to Hojberg and he shoots is that classed as a chance created?
 
But what justifies a chance created? Shouldn’t that be the minimum we expect from attacking players, creating chances? If son collects it on the wing, passes it to Hojberg and he shoots is that classed as a chance created?

I think you’re missing the point (maybe unintentionally but who knows). You said he does nothing other than score. I provided evidence that he creates chances and provides assists, more than everyone in the league bar the elite creative players like KDB, Salah, Odegaard, Bruno Fernandes, Alexander-Arnold etc but you’re now moving the goalposts and asking what justifies a chance :D next thing you’ll say what do goals really matter? Surely all that matters is running around, being a brickhouser, tackling, kicking and getting booked.
 
I feel one of the key issues with Son is the amount of defending he is being asked to do. Particularly from corners. He offers little to no effective defensive cover and I think we would be much better served with him upfield. This would achieve several things

1. Remove him from a defensive position where he is a clear liability
2. Take at least two defenders away from our box
3. Enables us to have a target upfield to hit and prevent balls keep coming back
with the all too frequent regularity the do now
4 Allow Son to utilise his key strengths - pace, dribbling and scoring
5. Let's Son conserve some energy to explode up front where we need him most

To me that is a no-brainier and will help him find his form and goal scoring touch.
 
I feel one of the key issues with Son is the amount of defending he is being asked to do. Particularly from corners. He offers little to no effective defensive cover and I think we would be much better served with him upfield. This would achieve several things

1. Remove him from a defensive position where he is a clear liability
2. Take at least two defenders away from our box
3. Enables us to have a target upfield to hit and prevent balls keep coming back
with the all too frequent regularity the do now
4 Allow Son to utilise his key strengths - pace, dribbling and scoring
5. Let's Son conserve some energy to explode up front where we need him most

To me that is a no-brainier and will help him find his form and goal scoring touch.
The corner thing I’ve said for years
Get your faster attacker away from the gaol we’re defending and make the opposition have to worry about him
 
But what justifies a chance created? Shouldn’t that be the minimum we expect from attacking players, creating chances? If son collects it on the wing, passes it to Hojberg and he shoots is that classed as a chance created?

Here’s another example where xG can be useful ;) especially over long periods of time.

xGA is an indicator of the quality of chances created by a player, in the form of expected assists.

Son’s xGA per 90 mins in his time with us is 0.22. His actual assists per 90 is 0.25. The small difference suggests that he is actually creative, and not just reliant on playing simple passes to other players who then finish well.

You asked about Royal for some reason. His figures when playing wing back for us are 0.09 and 0.09.

Edit: to look at Son’s stats in another way: you’d expect him to get around 6 or 7 assists a season based on the number and quality of chances he creates. In practice he gets around 7 or 8, thanks to good finishing from colleagues.
 
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Here’s another example where xG can be useful ;) especially over long periods of time.

xGA is an indicator of the quality of chances created by a player, in the form of expected assists.

Son’s xGA per 90 mins in his time with us is 0.22. His actual assists per 90 is 0.25. The small difference suggests that he is actually creative, and not just reliant on playing simple passes to other players who then finish well.

You asked about Royal for some reason. His figures when playing wing back for us are 0.9 and 0.9.

Edit: to look at Son’s stats in another way: you’d expect him to get around 6 or 7 assists a season based on the number and quality of chances he creates. In practice he gets around 7 or 8, thanks to good finishing from colleagues.
So Royal is actually achieving what his expected assists per game should be according to that? (almost an assist per game). Funny, I thought he was useless in an attacking sense for us listening to some on here.....
 
So Royal is actually achieving what his expected assists per game should be according to that? (almost an assist per game). Funny, I thought he was useless in an attacking sense for us listening to some on here.....

More to the point, the stats show Son IS creative and is among the top 10 in the league in assists and chances created but apparently assists mean nothing as all of his are 5 yard passes to Kane who bangs a goal in from 25 yards, chances created didn’t wash either, he scores a lot of goals but he only scores the 4th goal in a 5-0 rout and he complains too much when subbed. All in all, a real bad egg and should be one of the first out of the day :D
 
So Royal is actually achieving what his expected assists per game should be according to that? (almost an assist per game). Funny, I thought he was useless in an attacking sense for us listening to some on here.....

That’s not quite the right interpretation unfortunately… it just means the players he’s assisting are finishing as you’d expect them to. And the 0.09 figure means he’d assist about 3 times in a PL season - pretty poor for a wingback.
 
That’s not quite the right interpretation unfortunately… it just means the players he’s assisting are finishing as you’d expect them to. And the 0.09 figure means he’d assist about 3 times in a PL season - pretty poor for a wingback.

With our front three our wing bangs should be bagging more assists really, as Perisic is proving with his quality, 3 assists in 7. Royal has 2 in two season. He is underperforming that area in the modern game as a FB
 
More to the point, the stats show Son IS creative and is among the top 10 in the league in assists and chances created but apparently assists mean nothing as all of his are 5 yard passes to Kane who bangs a goal in from 25 yards, chances created didn’t wash either, he scores a lot of goals but he only scores the 4th goal in a 5-0 rout and he complains too much when subbed. All in all, a real bad egg and should be one of the first out of the day :D
Sums it up nicely 10/10.
 
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more of this please, mr conte
 
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