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Son Heung-Min

NaijaSpurs said:
When you consider the number if trademark goals he scores cutting in on his left foot I am surprised that Conte does not start him on the right when Kulu is unavailable. That way you can start Richarlison on the left where he is more comfortable as opposed to starting from the right.
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We've seen Son play on the right and be anonymous, even when in form though.

I think the reason is that his left footed goals come from more of a standing start but peak Son preferred dribbling at pace and cutting in on his right. Just always baffled me why the drop off was so big but it may also be that he is just so much more comfortable having spent so much time on the left. Smaller sample size for Richie but seems to be a similar issue with him having a weaker left foot.

I'm not sure our new guy is particularly experienced on the right so I do hope we can address this, as the drop off from Kulu to Gil is significant. Kulu doesn't look 100% fit to me.
 
El Guepardo said:
But largely supporters and others were praising Bissouma for being a good midfielder but likely thinking he would replace Hoijberg. And that he would be correctly utilised in the midfield to get the best out of him. The fact we signed him as a squad midfielder wasn’t clear from the outside and so the external assessment would vary considerably to that from inside the club.

Richarlison is an excellent footballer. No doubt. But very expensive for a backup striker. I’m not convinced by him as a left forward but I can understand that maybe that’s on me if everyone else says he plays well there. I do think he’s the lesser of the three in terms of issues as I do rate his quality but when people are bemoaning lack of investment in central defenders and we sign a £50m backup striker then it does seem confusing.

As for Spence. Again, a player with quality but maybe found it tough to make the step up. He does remind me of the Pochettino days though. A player brought in to play a role but for a cheaper fee instead of signing the player that the manager wanted who would have cost twice the price but would have been the right player so we end up spending twice. Like with Stambouli, N’Jie and Nkoudou. Signing a cheaper option is often more expensive with whole life cycle costs.

I believe we had £100m spent which could really have improved the team had the money been spent more wisely. Maybe some of that is hindsight but also seems that the purchases didn’t match what was really needed or at least Bissouma and Spence would have been getting more game time.
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The issue here though is what can you do if the manager gets those players and then does not play them? Is it Fab and the clubs fault that Conte would continue to play rank out of form Son, PEH and Royal rather than integrate others? I would say its a two way street there.

Spence, as much as I have called for him to be player now may have never been purchased for now and for the future and why not? The club has to look at that long term to, I think people see the past and have conflated the two and call him cheaper, but lets be real he was hyped hugely after last season and was a hugely exciting player in the cup, I don't think we have seen the last of that story.

As I say, the manager has to come half way here
 
El Guepardo said:
We made a lot of strange transfer decisions last summer.

Signing Bissouma who has never really fitted in even though he looked good at Brighton. He seems to run around kicking or fouling people for us.

Spence who was signed to be a right wing back a window before we decided to go and spend £40m on a different one.

Richarlison who we spent a LOT on but can’t play right forward effectively and seems more an out and out striker who won’t get game time because of Kane and yet we spent £50m+ on him.

Over £100m spent that we could have used far more wisely.
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I'm quite confident come next season this seasons signings will start to prove their worth.

Conte was clearly happy to stick with Hojbjerg & Bentancur in CM as they were part of the XI that stood up and got the business done at the end of last season, i think that goes a long way with the manager - Bissouma missed preseason with covid and was playing catchup for the first part of the season.

Our attack has been stunted by the drop off from Son and Richarlson has been used as a square peg for the most part.

Spence same as Bissouma really, came in late and there are 2 players from last season ahead of him in the pecking order who helped us in the run in last season - if the club had moved on one of Doherty/Royal then Conte would have used Spence more, but with the 2 senior players still here i think Conte is going to defer to trusted/experienced players
 
papaspur said:
Hope this gives him back some confidence, but he's always tended to do well as the main striker in Harry's absences.
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This is the thing, it was great to see Son look like his normal self but he was very much in the spaces Kane would usually be in either centrally or floating about. I’m not convinced this is going to lead to a great run of form for Son just yet, he will back out wide left against City with Kane back up top….
 
On the recent signings Bissouma, Richie and Spence, all 3 may still come good and its as much a lack of game time halfway through their first season as opposed to being out and out failures. I think we'd get most of our money back if they are on sensible wages, as the fees are reasonable and their reputations would get them another prem move. Personally I thought Biss would usurp Hojbjerg and Richie would be getting rotated with Son and Kane giving us a really strong option in 3 positions, Spence looked to have the lowest barrier to entry in the first x1 and I still don't understand why he's not getting opportunities even as an impact sub chasing the game as we regularly do. Seems odd to spend 20m for a future prospect in a position we are weak.

However the Lo Celso Ndombele and Sessegnon splurge was the one that still hurts us - think we'd all take a 50% hit right now to reinvest in the squad
 
MKSpur said:
However the Lo Celso Ndombele and Sessegnon splurge was the one that still hurts us - think we'd all take a 50% hit right now to reinvest in the squad
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This is definitely a big point too. That’s over £100m there. I think not spending wisely is a huge issue when we’re in our position. We are competing with clubs many of whom have bottomless pockets of cash to buy players so we have to ensure we spend wisely. The simple truth of the matter is that we haven’t.
 
El Guepardo said:
This is definitely a big point too. That’s over £100m there. I think not spending wisely is a huge issue when we’re in our position. We are competing with clubs many of whom have bottomless pockets of cash to buy players so we have to ensure we spend wisely. The simple truth of the matter is that we haven’t.
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And this is where I believe fans get it wrong about us not spending because we have proven we have BUT unlike other clubs like Emirates Marketing Project and Chelsea we have not been able to double down on mistakes. For example we signed Sanchez for 35m and he failed, we could not go out and sign a replacement for another 35m because he failed, City spent nearly 1bn on a defence to get that right which shows how much of a minefield it is. Liverpool were the good example of getting their signings spot on with a more limited budget but its not easy

We probably have had more wastage on signings gone wrong for decent money than anyone

Thats why I can live with Spence being one for the future because its not him that compounds our issues at full back, its Reggie, Doherty, Sess and Royal, you could put those fees together, sign two class FBs and have had Spence back up for one and it would have been miles better and miles more acceptable for fans
 
Grays_1890 said:
And this is where I believe fans get it wrong about us not spending because we have proven we have BUT unlike other clubs like Emirates Marketing Project and Chelsea we have not been able to double down on mistakes. For example we signed Sanchez for 35m and he failed, we could not go out and sign a replacement for another 35m because he failed, City spent nearly 1bn on a defence to get that right which shows how much of a minefield it is. Liverpool were the good example of getting their signings spot on with a more limited budget but its not easy

We probably have had more wastage on signings gone wrong for decent money than anyone

Thats why I can live with Spence being one for the future because its not him that compounds our issues at full back, its Reggie, Doherty, Sess and Royal, you could put those fees together, sign two class FBs and have had Spence back up for one and it would have been miles better and miles more acceptable for fans
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There is no guarantee that more expensive player would have worked though.

Look at Soldado, on paper a sure thing.
 
Baleforce said:
There is no guarantee that more expensive player would have worked though.

Look at Soldado, on paper a sure thing.
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Exactly which again shows what I am saying, we just don't have the resources to correct the mistakes

The "cheap" alternatives or went for youth instead part is crap though, which is the main point I was getting at
 
Baleforce said:
There is no guarantee that more expensive player would have worked though.

Look at Soldado, on paper a sure thing.
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We need to make sure that the player is a good fit for the playing style, and a player the manager would like and seems to have no baggage. Aside from that not much else can be done. It’s why the Chelsea scatter gun approach seems bizarre but they have the money that they can keep spending so it doesn’t matter how many signings fail. Sign enough and they’ll work it out.
 
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Son's performance against Preston was a case of a player being able to play in a manner that suited him, rather than being shoehorned in to a system that highlights his weaknesses. If I could change one thing about the way we set up it would be to excuse Son from all defensive duties and tell him to remain much higher up the pitch.

This not only suits his game (as he's pretty hopeless at anything he does in his own half) but will force opponents to defend deeper against us; something that will make a huge difference to our ability to play through opponents. Against most opponents we don't need all our outfield players behind the ball; it just pushes us deeper.

It baffles me that Conte continually asks him to do things he's not only not good at but poor at, i.e. play with his back to goal and track back, while limiting the amount he's able to do what he's best at: make forward runs facing the opponent's goal and receive the ball in the inside forward positions on either foot. Preston were poor but Son had the freedom to roam and always received the ball on the half turn or facing forward. It's almost as if letting a player play to his (world-class) strengths made him play better...
 
Push and run said:
Son's performance against Preston was a case of a player being able to play in a manner that suited him, rather than being shoehorned in to a system that highlights his weaknesses. If I could change one thing about the way we set up it would be to excuse Son from all defensive duties and tell him to remain much higher up the pitch.

This not only suits his game (as he's pretty hopeless at anything he does in his own half) but will force opponents to defend deeper against us; something that will make a huge difference to our ability to play through opponents. Against most opponents we don't need all our outfield players behind the ball; it just pushes us deeper.

It baffles me that Conte continually asks him to do things he's not only not good at but poor at, i.e. play with his back to goal and track back, while limiting the amount he's able to do what he's best at: make forward runs facing the opponent's goal and receive the ball in the inside forward positions on either foot. Preston were poor but Son had the freedom to roam and always received the ball on the half turn or facing forward. It's almost as if letting a player play to his (world-class) strengths made him play better...
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He seemed to do alright last season in the system. Many pundits saying he was player of the season.
 
Bedfordspurs said:
People will say the system has changed
I don’t think it has
What’s hurt him is the lack of ball control when he gets a pass which means he is getting the ball and getting closed down too easily
That extra space is then gone
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People say conte is too rigid snd doesn't change his system. I get the impression people don't know what they're talking about and are just lashing out through frustration.
 
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