Some perspective on Heung-Min Son's season so far | OneFootball

So far this campaign, we have seen Son receive a lot of criticism from within the Spurs fanbase. With injuries and a loss of form (perhaps these two things go hand in hand), it has not been the start to the season that the skipper would have hoped for, that much is true.

The numbers behind the Spurs captain's 24/25 season so far

However, his numbers are not too bad at all. In 986 Premier League minutes so far, the 32-year old has scored five goals, provided six assists, and created 12 big chances. From those 12 big chances, 11 have been from open play – which is a (joint) high in the league so far this season.

Those five goals come from an expected goals of just 3.57, with three left foot goals and two right foot – everything there has been what we have come to expect from Son over the years.

There will be people reading this thinking “we have eyes”, and there is no doubt that the skipper’s overall performances have been lacking at times. There should be context applied to that, though – it would be disingenuous not to do so.

As touched on above, Son has had a stop start season with injuries, and it can take a number of games to get back into rhythm, particularly at his age. Usually playing 90 minutes against Rangers would not be optimal for a player in his 30’s, but it really seemed to truly dust off the rustiness in his game.

Furthermore, the criticism of his performance against Chelsea felt very loud. Even if you don’t play too well, nor look easy on the eye – if you score a goal, as well as provide two big chances for team mates – you have had a productive game.

Whilst his performance on the night was not great, he looked back to his old self against Southampton. Yes, sure, not a great opponent. However, his game generally looked a lot sharper, regardless of the other team. He made a serviceable Premier League full-back like Kyle Walker-Peters look terrible on a number of occasions.

As well as pretty base stats like these, the underlying data for Son has been good too. As per the always excellent DataMB, we can see how he ranks up against players around the top five leagues so far in 24/25.

According to their data, nobody (in the top five leagues) averages more chances created a game (1.49), whilst also ranking in the 93rd percentile for Xg+ xA, 84th percentile for non penalty goals, and 90th percentile for assists.

With his assist for Pape Sarr on Sunday, Son went level with Darren Anderton for Premier League assists in a Tottenham Hotspur shirt, at 67. Then, his assist for James Maddison at the end of the first half put him on 68, meaning he stands alone as the highest assist provider in Spurs’ Premier League history.

No doubt he is not at his absolute best form, but this just shows how high his standard is. The captain’s floor are other player’s ceiling. Let’s hope Sunday’s performance is the start of a really good run of form.