View: Son Heung-min must now become the regular Tottenham number-nine
As Tottenham went 5-1 up at Burnley on Saturday (2 September), everyone associated with the club would have been jumping for joy, except for one man who was sat on the bench behind Ange Postecoglou.
It will be almost impossible now for Richarlison to replace Son Heung-min after the South Korea international bagged a hat-trick on Lancashire against Vincent Kompany’s men.
Neither player has made an impressive start to the 2023/24 campaign. It was clear to many that Son wasn’t effective from the wide areas in Postecoglou’s system. He and Dejan Kulusevski had both made a stuttering start to the season and Spurs’ Brazillian forward hadn’t done much better himself.
Goals had mostly come from the midfield and defensive areas prior to the trip to Burnley and Postecoglou had clearly seen enough from his misfiring front three, and decided to shake things up. This worked an absolute treat as Manor Solomon, who replaced Richarlison, twice fed Son, who later completed his hat-trick after being played in by Pedro Porro.
Son scored three times with three shots on target, from an expected goals total of 1.12 (Sofascore), and while he didn’t offer much else in the match, he didn’t need to, as he put on an Erling Haaland-esque precise performance. His clinical finishing would have reminded those in the league just how dangerous he can be.
His first of the three was world-class and perhaps the best finish of the bunch. As shown in the image above, he dinked the ball over both the Burnley defender and shot-stopper who were standing between himself and the goal.
His second strike was devastating. As shown in the image above, the ball was rolled across the box for him by Solomon and Son would absolutely rifle it home.
It was a finish that James Trafford had no chance of reaching as the ball flew past him at speed into his bottom left-hand corner.
And finally, for the third, Son showed great finishing as well as great movement. As shown in the image above, he made an incredible run through the middle of the Burnley defence which was picked out by Porro.
He then drove a finish low and hard past Trafford to make the score 5-1 and ensure he was heading back to London with the match ball.
After a performance like that, it is almost impossible to even consider dropping Son, and Richarlison will now have to fight tooth and nail in training to even be in with a shout of making a Premier League starting 11 for Tottenham.
In other Tottenham news, the club’s Under-21s made it five wins out of five.