Son Heung-min (Tottenham Hotspur) will attempt to score his 13th goal against Crystal Palace.
Tottenham Hotspur will host Crystal Palace at home at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on March 3 at 0:00 a.m. ET in the 27th round of the 2023-24 English Premier League season. Tottenham currently sits in fifth place with 14 wins, five draws, six losses, and 47 points. They will look to close the gap on the Big Four against Crystal Palace, who are in 13th place.
Tottenham named Heung-min Son as their starting XI with an hour to go, along with Timo Werner, Dejan Koulousevski, James Maddison, Rodrigo Bentancur, Yves Bissouma, Destiny Udogie, Micky van der Penne, Christian Romero, Emerson Royal, and Guglielmo Vicario.
Tottenham’s first official game in over a month. With no cup competitions on the horizon, Spurs have had plenty of time to shake off the lingering effects of their 1-2 loss to Wolverhampton Wanderers on March 18, and they’ve made some changes to their lineup in the meantime. The striker who has been the star of the show is out with an injury.
“He’s out for three to four weeks with a knee injury,” Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou said before the game against Crystal Palace. Given that the injury is to the knee, it seems likely that he suffered a blow in the previous game against Wolverhampton. He started that game and was substituted in the 26th minute.
His injury forced a change in the foundation of Tottenham’s form. He has been a different player in the second half of the season, scoring 10 goals in the Premier League this season, including nine in his last 10 games. He was the man who provided the goals when Son Heung-min was away for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) 2023 Asian Cup in Qatar.
Without him, Spurs will have to reorganize their attacking lineup. The frontline options to replace him are Son Heung-min and Timo Werner. Son is the more decisive option as he’s the one who will be responsible for scoring goals. Werner can also play up top, but he has said that he is “more comfortable as a left wing-forward” since joining Tottenham on loan, so he deserves the front line.
Heung-min Son is no stranger to playing up front. When he went goal-less earlier this season, Postecoglou improvised by putting Son up front. Heung-min scored six goals in September alone, including a hat-trick against Burnley in his first start up front.
This led British media outlet Sky Sports to compare him to Cristiano Ronaldo (Al Nasr). In October last year, Sky Sports said, “Son is physically strong and has a good ability to finish with both feet. “In the past, Ronaldo has moved equally from the wing to the center. He’s still more of a flanker, but in Kane’s absence, he’s starting to open up new avenues,” he said of the striker.
He’s naturally closer to goal According to the media’s analysis, Son had previously taken less than 10% of his touches inside the penalty box. This season, however, his touches inside the box have increased to 20%.
This suits Postecoglou’s tactics perfectly. As Sky Sports explains, “Postecoglou prefers strikers who can get behind the opposition defense and still destroy them. “Son is a more natural fit than Kane in this system,” says Sky Sports. “His presence also frees up playmaker James Maddison. He has evolved into a real attacking player.”
We’ll see this again against Crystal Palace. With Son Heung-min up front, it will be interesting to see if he can continue to be the Crystal Palace killer. In total, Son has 안전놀이터 faced Crystal Palace 16 times, scoring eight goals and providing two assists.
A lot of those goals have been meaningful. His first goal against Crystal Palace came in 2015. In the sixth round of the 2015-16 Premier League season, Son sprinted alone after receiving a pass from Christian Eriksen and found the back of the net, which remains his debut goal for Crystal Palace.
In April 2019, Son scored against Crystal Palace in the opening match of Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium, scoring in the 10th minute of the second half. Last season, Son also scored for Crystal Palace despite wearing a protective mask due to a fractured orbital bone. He celebrated by throwing the mask away with a roar.
This time, he is expected to be free of the finger injury. British media outlet 90min focused on the two-week break. Heung-min will be able to shake off the finger injury he suffered in a collision with Lee Kang-in (Paris Saint-Germain) during the Asian Cup. “Son Heung-min’s dislocated finger has recovered,” said 90min. His status will be key to Tottenham’s chances of climbing back into the Premier League’s top four.”
If Son does find the back of the net at Crystal Palace, it will be his first goal in two months since his 12th goal against Bournemouth in January. After returning from the Asian Cup with one assist in his last two games, Son will be focused on getting his 13th goal.