The new season in the Premier League for Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur started off in a wonderful fashion. The team has shown the intent to win and score goals rather than sitting deep and trying to defend or avoid a defeat. The credit must be given to the new partnership of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, who have taken the Premier League by storm.
They have set up 29 goals for each other, seven behind the most productive duo in the history of Premier League - Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard. And, nine of those have come this season!
Son has the most goals – eight and Kane has the same number of assists.
In the management of Mourinho, the team is built with a defensive mindset, where either he would have star strikers or a goal-scoring winger. The goal-scorers would be given the freedom to score in the background of a compact midfield and defence.
His regime at Manchester United might look poor because once Zlatan Ibrahimovic went down; Romelu Lukaku needed the development, which Mourinho does not do - he needs readymade stars to deliver in his system.
The ending of Mourinho at Old Trafford was a sad one, but in Tottenham Hotspur, he could find the readymade stars up front – Kane and Son provided him the perfect opportunity to apply his system.
The Spurs witnessed their inspiring coach, Mauricio Pochettino sacked and Mourinho was appointed to fix things.
That is what Mourinho always does – take over a team at sixes and sevens, put them in the places of his system, and then emphasize the star forwards to showcase their talent. Perhaps, no one has forgotten how Mourinho galvanized Diego Milito in Inter back in 2009-10 and then, how Cristiano Ronaldo became a potent goal scorer rather than just a winger playing wide in the midfield.
For Mourinho, it is all about his special style in his own way.
The Spurs of Mourinho defends deep and always looks to retain the possession and quickly pass the ball upfront either scripting a long ball or through-pass.
Both Son and Kane are quick enough to respond to the play at the center of the park and occupy the spaces from where they could break the defence.
The shape of the Tottenham midfield takes a diamond form with three center backs and four in the midfield, where two pivots work to retain the ball while the full-backs go higher up the pitch to attack from the flanks and wingers or forwards make inward runs into the box in order to receive long balls. And when the midfielders don’t form a pivot, the Spurs attack in 2-4-1-3 shape with the same attacking approach.
Son is a winger- a left-winger whereas Kane is a traditional center-forward.
Tactically Kane is gifted and like any fox in the box, he is always aware of where the ball would come and he could exploit the opportunity. With the progress of time, Kane showed, he is not just a mere center-forward, but more than that.
After Tottenham's victory over Chelsea in January 2015, blogger Chris Miller wrote, “Nobody thought he was the guy who was going to give that performance against Chelsea”.
In 2015, BBC Sport wrote that Kane was best as a lone striker, with his “hold-up play and close control” making him apt in other positions as well.
Also that month, Match of the Day pundit Danny Murphy said that the England team should be built around Kane, stating, “I'm struggling to see a weakness in the lad's game”.
ESPN reporter Michael Cox stated that "Kane was initially considered a pure goal scorer, he's actually a good all-round player, often playing as an attacking midfielder", pointing out that during the 2018 FIFA World Cup “Kane's contributions in deeper positions were outstanding, his back-to-goal work as impressive as ever”.
Indeed, although Kane is predominantly known for his clinical finishing and prolific goal-scoring ability as an out-and-out striker, he is also known for his vision, technique, link-up play, and passing ability, which enables him to drop deep, bring his teammates into play, and create chances for other players; as such he is also capable of playing in a more creative role as a number 10.
Even though Son is a left-winger who can either cut inside to shoot or run down the line, he can also play behind the striker as a shadow-striker or in a similar style on the opposite flank. He wastes no time in holding onto the ball or performing unnecessary skill moves. Instead, he looks to burst forward with extreme pace. Son creates havoc by accelerating up the pitch at a high speed, often beating all of the opposition defenders to the dust - Son completes just fewer than seven dribbles per game with a 70% success rate.
Son can exercise his brilliant shooting ability with both the left and right foot. Thus, he can throw the defender off guard. His ability to produce the unexpected is what makes him such an incredibly rare player. With the ability to score so fluently with either foot in the biggest games, he certainly possesses incredible drive and composure.
Now, such qualities encourage the Spurs to rely on the long balls more and more towards the wing and beyond the defensive line of the opposition. When the ball is received from midfield, Son accelerates quickly and in the twinkle of an eye, either he would score or assist to put the Spurs ahead.
Meanwhile, in this season, Kane has been all about composure providing the perfect support to the composure of other goal-scorers – Son has been one of the most benefited customers of Kane’s ability to break the passing lanes and produce the killer passes to create wonderful outcomes.
To create a dynamic duo there has to have a very good understanding.
The understanding between Kane and Son makes them aware of each other without the ball. If Kane has the ball then Son quickly realizes that it would come to him and his ability to go beyond the defensive line outweighs the defenders.
Kane is aware of the direction of Son’s run and how much weight he has to put on the pass in order for Son to collect it and go for the goal and in fact, Son shares the same ideology.
Both of them swap their positions rapidly where Son purely becomes the striker and Kane the provider either as a winger or attacking midfielder. And when Kane is free at the center, Son cuts back and runs like a Hare while defenders thought, they have blocked the passing lanes.
In such moments, how well a duo can lift the tempo and complement each other remains the most important aspect and so far, in this season, Kane and Son have shown how well they complement each other.
Such understanding between the two has been effective in the Spurs attack so far this season and looks to strengthen as the season progress.
The development of this duo started under Pochettino and under Mourinho, both are showing their best display.
Mourinho said, “It is an understanding that comes from Mauricio's time. I don't want all the credit myself, let's share with Mauricio. They play together for a long time, probably a different way because Harry is not always a 9 now.”
“What pleases me more about them both is that they are two top players but close friends, no jealousy, they both play for the team.”
The Premier League has just commenced and this has been a crazy season so far.
The Kane and Son duo is rocking and perhaps the best is yet to come.
Note: This article has been posted at Cricketsoccer as CSdesk on 02/11/2020 Harry Kane and Son Heung-min are thriving under Jose Mourinho
Thank You
Faisal Caesar
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