Former Premier League star Stan Collymore has admitted that he made a mistake in his initial assessment of Tottenham Hotspur attacker Son Heung-min.
The South Korea international has blossomed into a vital part of Mauricio Pochettino’s side, and is the club’s main source of goals behind frontman Harry Kane.
Collymore has been hugely impressed: “When Son arrived at Tottenham , I made the mistake, like many others, of pinning him down as a squad man,” he wrote in his Daily Mirror column. “I thought he’d come in for three or four matches, for games at the lower end of the Premier League and Champions League, and then be back on the bench.
“I thought he’d be merely an impact player, a squad man who’d get the requisite number of games rather than someone Spurs fans would pin their hopes on.
But he responded well to Kane’s absence and, having used his form then as a platform, he is now so much more than the player many of us expected him to be. To such an extent that I’d imagine Kane’s is the only name guaranteed on Pochettino’s teamsheet before Son’s at the moment.”
OPINION
Son has certainly exceeded expectations in North London. He was perceived as a nice attacking player when he arrived from Bayer Leverkusen, but no one thought he would make the impact he has done for Pochettino’s team. He is a vital player for them now and shoulders much of the attacking burden behind Kane. There will be plenty of Spurs fans worried about how they will cope without him when he leaves for international duty soon, and you can’t blame them. As Collymore says he is one of the first names on Pochettino’s team sheet. He probably was brought to the club as a squad man but he has long proved that he is one of the finest attackers in the Premier League. He always looks like he is so happy to be playing, as well, and it’s a joy for fans to watch him at the moment. Hopefully Spurs cope OK without him while he’s away, but they’ll certainly miss him over the next few weeks.