House of the Rising Son
Harry Kane’s ankle ligaments are too puffy for a scan. That’s the latest verdict from Mauricio Pochettino, who was pressed for details about the magnitude of the England striker’s injury on Friday. We need to be patient, he told the media pit, presumably forgetting who he was talking to.
While we all take a nervous seat in the waiting room, then, idly thumbing through a Gardeners’ World magazine and slurping on gritty vending machine coffee, it’s good to see the rest of the Spurs team take up some of the slack, in the absence of the North London club’s most trustworthy goal merchant.
Fostering a large slice of the burden, has been Hueng-min Son. The South Korean doubled his goal tally for the season against Middlesbrough at the weekend and equalled his haul from the last campaign in just three games.
If Son was some trading floor grunt, that kind of spike in productivity would have him fast-tracked to his own penthouse office. He’d quickly become one of those people who turns up to work in chinos and a polo shirt and spends the day practicing his putting. If I’ve learned anything from movies from the 1980s, it’s that successful people spend a lot of time polishing up their short game.
We’ve heard all the stories about how close the former Leverkusen attacker came to leaving White Hart Lane in the summer. In an alternate universe somewhere, Spurs fans are watching a £25m Wilfried Zaha discharge a flurry of lightning-quick step-overs, before catapulting the ball through the large hole in the corner of the South Stand. Meanwhile Son is setting light to the Bundesliga like he’d never been away.
I’m glad things worked out the way they did. One of the first things submitted to these pages, was a glowing review of Son’s home debut against Crystal Palace, almost exactly a year ago. It wasn’t just the fact that he’d scored the winner and made Alan Pardew sad, but his general vibe that resonated with me as an easily satisfied football fan. Son is a cheerful sort, who just looks pleased to be doing the thing he loves. Hardworking, unselfish; a real team player.
Thankfully along with these somewhat nebulous attributes, things that don’t necessarily equate to being a useful member of the first eleven, are some empirical results. Goals, assists, MOTM performances; it’s been quite the turnaround.
Although not a traditional striker, Son’s quartet of finishes this season have been wonderful. From the nimble redirecting of Christian Eriksen’s cross against Stoke the other week, to his fiercely whipped belter at the Riverside on Saturday. He’s been lethal.
With few concrete answers regarding Kane’s injury and Vincent Janssen still finding his feet, his resurgence has come at the perfect time for Spurs.
**This article first appeared on Yahoo! Sport**
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