FAVOURITE SON
Heung-min is one of the stars of the season ...he makes things happen, excites the fans and players just hate defending against him
TOTTENHAM legend Darren Anderton has hailed the impact Son Heung-min is having on Spurs this season.
South Korea star Son returned from Asia Cup duty with a bang, scoring the goal that prompted Spurs’ come-from-behind win against Watford in his first game back, then bagging the only goal of the game against Newcastle three days later.
Those strikes made it 10 in his last 12 Premier League outings and, crucially, the more recent ones have come at a time when Tottenham have been without talisman Harry Kane.
Anderton, who played 299 top-flight games for Spurs between 1992 and 2004, said: “The way he has played this year, he has been absolutely on fire.
“When he first came he always excited the crowd but sometimes maybe he’d give the ball away, and in the final third his quality wasn’t that good.
“But he has just got better and better, which is typical of players under Mauricio Pochettino – he just improves them.
“Son has so much confidence, he gives 110 per cent, he’s direct, and defenders must hate playing against him because he doesn’t just do the easy thing.
“He runs behind them, he gets the ball and tries to get at them, he shoots and his quality, left or right-footed, is different class.
“He has been one of the players of the season in the Premier League.
“He had a great World Cup as well, but just in terms of what he has done for Spurs this year, he has been outstanding.
“He is getting every single thing that is possible out of himself as a player, and you have to appreciate that.”
Like Son, whose side take on Leicester today, Anderton was a very gifted winger.
But, laughing, he said: “I don’t know if there are any similarities – he’s sharper than me.
“He’s a great finisher and when he’s out wide he gets the ball and delivers.
“That’s the biggest thing. He makes things happen, just through doing the right thing in the final third, getting shots in, producing crosses.
“My old coaches would say, ‘Get in the final third and it’s crosses and shots, crosses and shots’.
“It entertains the crowd as well and gives them a lift. When you’re playing you can feel that anticipation, you can feel the sense in the crowd when you get the ball that you can do something – and that’s a pretty good feeling.
“Sometimes when players do things as quickly as Son, and have that much energy and try that hard, they lose a bit of quality, but he doesn’t.
“You see wingers getting the ball and dribbling past one, dribbling past two, but then getting sloppy with a final ball that is nowhere near good enough.
“That could have been said of m a ny wingers over the years. But he doesn’t do that. He has the full package. Teams become scared of Sonny and they sit deeper and deeper, and that gives the likes of Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen the space to make things happen as well.
“He runs at the same intensity in the 90th minute as he did in the first too – it’s quite frightening actually.”