Son Heung-min’s brilliant Tottenham career could have been cut short due to doubts over his finishing when he first joined the club.
That is according to Paul Mitchell, who worked as Spurs’ head of recruitment and analysis for two years during Mauricio Pochettino’s time with the club. Mitchell oversaw the signing of Son on a five-year contract for a fee of £22million from Bayer Leverkusen in August 2015.
The South Korean arrived on the back of 29 goals in 87 appearances for Leverkusen but initially struggled to make an impact at Tottenham. He was 23 years old at the time and managed just eight goals in 40 appearances during the 2015/16 season.
Mitchell, who also brought Dele Alli, Toby Alderweireld and Kieran Trippier to Spurs, had the backing of Pochettino, who he had worked with at previous club Southampton. But his recruitment of Son was openly questioned by some members of staff.
"I took quite a lot of criticism in my first year at Tottenham for some of my decisions and Sonny was kind of at the centre of that, and it was a bit of a learning curve for me; that sometimes players need time,” Mitchell, who now works for Monaco, told Sky Sports. “They're human beings, they need time to settle.
"There was this narrative that started to grow internally and externally that he wasn't a good finisher and I remember one of the staff members saying that to me when I was watching a training session, and I said 'you're wrong, because his history shows at two different clubs that he's a very astute finisher off both sides'.
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"And we have seen this over the years, since that first year of integration, because you know the qualities of the individual, it's everything we saw. The coach effect obviously (helps) growing that potential to be consistent and he will, I think, go down as one of the greatest players in Premier League history."
Son has gone on to establish himself as one of the greatest forwards in Tottenham's history by contributing 131 goals and 73 assists in 324 matches for the club. He shared the Premier League’s Golden Boot with Liverpool ’s Mohamed Salah last season after scoring 23 times across the campaign.
What was particularly notable about his goalscoring exploits was his two-footed finishing; Son scored more with his supposedly-weaker left (12) than his right (11). According to Transfermarkt’s data, Son has scored 51 goals for Spurs with his left foot and 61 with his right altogether.
His ability to score with either foot is a result of meticulous training from a young age in South Korea. Son was coached by his father, Son Woong-jung, who did not allow him to practise shooting until he was 15 years old. Then, when he was 18, he began intense training of the skill, often shooting 500 times with his left and right foot in single sessions.
“Whenever he does shooting practice, I make sure that he does hundreds and hundreds of shots, especially when he was young,” Son Woong-jung told The Athletic recently. “But if the left one was falling behind a bit I’d make sure that he was even and they were at the same level before he was done for the day.”
There are certainly no doubts about Son’s ability for Tottenham now. Antonio Conte reserved special praise for the forward earlier this month which underlines his status at the club. “For every manager, if you want to win, you need players of great talent,” Conte said. “Sonny impressed me for the commitment, for the attitude, for the behaviour – he is a really good guy.
“But I think many people don’t know the man, the person that you find in Sonny. He always has a smile on his face. For sure he is a positive person. He is an important player for Tottenham. Every manager dreams of having this type of talent in your hands.”
