Let’s start with the big picture statistics, namely the total successful actions which separates emotion from what actually occurred. Some might seek to brand this as a cruel metric, but in professional sports, nobody needs explanations, just facts.
So the old, ‘ah, but he did some amazing running off the ball’ is for the civilians – we need to know when he touched the ball if it was good, bad, or ugly.
Sonny really struggled at Craven Cottage in the narrow maelstrom of it all. 49% is too low; toss a coin territory, which was atypical for the South Korean, whose mean average is 56.8%. Too many of those pesky black crosses.
Yet Son is a class act, so please don’t mistake this for a post-match ‘yeah but’ pile-on, there was plenty of good.
One of these passes resulted in Harry Kane’s poorly directed header.
This move enabled Dele Alli’s flick which resulted in the own goal.
In conclusion, Son had a great game because of his quality absolutely shining through. Less than 50% of what he did paid off, and yet he supplied plenty of ‘show stealing’ moments.The perception of watching Sonny may well have been lots of bungled actions – but the truth was, that the boy was mustard when it counted.
The goal came from a certain player who won possession and quickly released Kane to set up Son to deliver, but let’s not mention him.
Agreed on being overplayed. In crunch moments a team needs its top players to produce. Since December ours haven’t. Strikers can’t score every chance, but Kane and Son are missing more than expected. We are still getting great chances (Liverpool at Anfield), just not taking them.
Dele’s pass actually pushed him too wide.I would suggest if Kane and Son are currently dropping below their usual high standards it is because they are not being rested sufficiently.With them it is always the same problem.
One great pass to Kane, but when it counted with Dele’s cross he bungled it. He’s had a lot of football this season and it shows. We have 2 world class players and he should be producing more for me. Other players have to step up, but it is glaringly obvious they are not good enough. He’s hit a rough bit of form, but he should come through it.
I agree to some extent, but I’m hugely aware of people who spend all game staring at a player they love, and then at full time when it’s pointed out to them, he didn’t score or assist or make some stellar save, we get told how ‘important’ the nile he put in off the ball. It’s frequently hokum designed to obfuscate
Son definitely annoyed a good few fans, but if we need a villain of the piece it was Hojbjerg, bizarrely
He’s lost confidence in his shooting over the last month or so. Also running with the ball/taking on a player in an attempt to create a scoring opportunity he’s stopped doing 99% of the time.
Could partly be tactical but I don’t think that’s the main reason, seems confidence. He’s definitely had opportunities he’d have snapped up earlier in the season.
Probably a coincidence with the unsigned contract but that might be weighing on him a tiny bit psychologically :/
He’s usually mustard in the first half – less so second half as a rule.
Thats usually symptomatic of the entire side but not always.
Hes a tiny bit off form but as you say, he’s still got that quality that shines through even when playing just ok in general.
Don’t see that at all, what I do see is just how true the “trouble with the curve” message is when faced by “stats” – it really is the organic versus the mechanical: for me the game is still organic despite so much effort being put into trying to mechanise it!
I though that was one of Son’s worst performances I’ve watched, with pretty much just the two highlights you’ve shown: less than a minute out of 95 minutes. He should have been subbed.
Don’t get me wrong I love Sonny and he’s a priceless gem in our team and I understand that he is not a muscular powerhouse, but he was targeted for rough, physical treatment in this game and after a few hits I think he bottled it for pretty much the rest of the game.
Maybe Lucas at half time with Bale switching to the left would have been an idea; given our fixtures I’d have also been looking to make sure that he was not injured and I think Bale would not have been such an easy target.
Having said that there may be so fatigue, he has not looked quite on-song for a little while now……
It’s an odd situation as we want him scoring more goals and Kane too but they both looked a bit lost last night and generally over the past few weeks.
Perhaps the stupid errors by our defense are taking their toll mentally on them.
The individual stats don’t tell the whole story, most of it but not all for me. A player’s involvement in a game should also be measured by their contribution to the team effort.
A player or a number of player’s running off the ball (for exemplar) at key moments can contribute hugely to creating space for others to do their higher stat count stuff.
its a collective endeavour winning football matches and every player should play their part, regardless of individual stats. Effort and team cohesion are just as important as individual stats…
Hang on.
What precisely upset you?
Stating facts would aid your case, opposed to ‘he was rubbish, but you didn’t want to touch on it’ !?
So you saw how bad he was last night (the guy needs a rest not dropping for being carp) & decided to find 2 things he did right.
oh well…