Kulusevski is my new Premier League crush! He’s cool calm can unpick locks ’’ and will be the pefect partner for Kane and Son STAN COLLYMORE
WHEN you are putting together a forward line, everything is about balance and blend, and the benchmark for that in recent seasons has been Liverpool’s front three.
Mo Salah, Bobby Firmino and Sadio Mane have been a dream to watch, but with Mane gone and Darwin Nunez putting Firmino under pressure, we will have to wait and see how Jurgen Klopp’s 2.0 forward line develops.
The front threes at Manchester United and Manchester City are still works in progress, and Arsenal’s is not yet at the level whereby you’d mark it out as the best in the Premier League.
But Tottenham’s is and the fact it’s one that’s functioning right from the off makes it hard to disagree with those who say it’s the best forward line in the Premier League right now.
Without a doubt, Heung-min Son, Harry Kane and Dejan Kulusevski are right at it already, with the Swede the pick of the three in the 4-1 thumping of Southampton last weekend.
He’s the cherry on top of that attack, popping up on the left and the right against the Saints, wanting to go and play off the striker and not just automatically coming inside and wanting to shoot.
Exciting
Having said that, when he’s in a position in the box he is cool and calm, as we saw with his finish down by the keeper’s right hand.
And so exciting was his performance against Southampton that it made me want to get a Spurs shirt with his name on the back and he could well be my Premier League crush for the season.
What I like about Kulusevski since he arrived in January is that he can unpick locks in the same way as a Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and
Raheem Sterling.
That will not only get him 11 or 12 goals a season but it will mean he’s a real conduit to Kane in the box and someone who can maybe even help Sonny score more goals than the 23 he bagged last season to finish joint-top scorer with Salah.
What is interesting as well, is that Kulusevski might have looked at the situation around Richarlison’s big-money arrival from Everton and assumed he’d be the one making way. But the fact
of the matter already is that the Brazilian will have to be bang at it to get ahead of any of those three.
And with Ivan Perisic, who can operate across the front three as well as at wing-back, added to the squad, suddenly Spurs have proper depth among their forward options.
Momentum
In recent years, you always worried about something happening to Kane or Son, and they did struggle to maintain momentum when either or both of them were injured.
But that wouldn’t be the case now and let’s say that after the World Cup those two are tired or plateau, then Antonio Conte still has three really good options he can bring in and rely
on. Even if it’s for three or four weeks, you’d back them to do the business and that’s great for the squad.
Because all of a sudden, Kane and Son are of the mindset, ‘I’ve got to get back, I know the gaffer has given me a few days to go away and play golf, but I want to be there and need to be on top form, otherwise I could lose my place’.
It’s actually stunning work by Conte to create that and, while I’m not convinced they will go to Stamford Bridge and win today, Chelsea’s defence will know they have been in a right old battle by the final whistle.