Son Heung-Min evolving into more of a playmaker

Hello and welcome to the Friday grab bag. Before we get to games we’re watching and stuff we’re reading, I would like to do a little Son Heung-Min appreciation section. I was concerned that recent injury troubles would be the start of a significant drop-off in quality from the 32-year-old, but he’s probably been Tottenham’s best player this season.

Son is best known for his scoring prowess, and he’s doing well in that regard with 5 goals in 985 minutes this season. But a somewhat surprising revelation has been how well-rounded of an attacker Son has been this year.

His shot locations are looking like typical Son stuff, with some very nice tight angle finishes coming from the edge of the 6-yard box. He’s consistently one of the best at finding the corner from the left side of the box, 6-to-12 yards from goal.

But I’ve been most impressed with the improvement in Son’s final pass. Son appears to be in a great window of his career where he hasn’t lost much of his trademark pace yet, but his vision has improved significantly.

His assisting capabilities have leveled up under Ange Postecoglou. Two years ago, Son had 5 open play assists from 42 key passes and 4.03 xG assisted. Last season, he had 9 assists from 67 key passes and 10.02 xG assisted. And this season, he’s continuing on a similar pace, with a variety of crosses, cutbacks and through balls.

Son spent much of his career as a kind of wide striker, but it’s been very cool to watch him evolve into just as much of a playmaker as he is a goal-scorer, with his xA outpacing his xG so far this year. I’m not sure how long he’ll have the ability to run in behind defenses and score off one-on-ones, but he’s adding enough to his game that he’s likely to remain an impactful attacker even after his pace leaves him.

Over at the premium betting newsletter, Ted has quite a few picks that I wouldn’t have expected before reading the lines and his reasoning behind them. It’s a good reminder about the point of the betting newsletter: Think about what you’re doing! Betting actual money on your gut feelings is dumb!

Brentford, for example, are generally a good attacking team and really good at home. My first thought is that I like them at home this week, but Ted breaks down why the math ain’t mathing. Plus picks for all the other Premier League and Championship games, including ones he’s not betting on and why.

If you enjoy gambling and want to learn how to be much less stupid about it, you can upgrade here.

Games we’re watching

As usual, you can find times and listings for your region at LiveSoccerTV.

Bayern Munich vs. RB Leipzig — A rare Friday evening banger. Leipzig turned in a good performance against Frankfurt last week and might be back on track towards top 4, but they get to head into winter break with their hardest fixture of the season.

Milan vs. Hellas Verona — Hellas have conceded 39 goals in La Liga this season, so it’s a good opportunity for Milan to erroneously convince everyone that they’re so back, or for us to definitively decide that it’s so over.

Barcelona vs Atlético Madrid — Barca were very much in control of La Liga for a second, but they’ve had some mediocre recent results, and Atléti is on an 11-game winning streak in all competitions.

Tottenham Hotspur vs. Liverpool — You just never know what you’re going to get with Spurs. Could they crush Liverpool? Lose by 5 goals? Absolutely. Equally possible.

Stuff we’re reading and an MLS sidebar

Tor-Kristian Karlsen at ESPN wrote about the people in charge of transfers at big clubs and their resumes. Highly recommended for people who like our transfer-related content.

Llew Davies at Scouted breaks down a long list of interesting players who are out of contract this year, and can start negotiating with clubs come January.

Fintan O'Reilly at Total Football Analysis looks at Michael Olise’s role and development at Bayern Munich this season.

197 voters at The Guardian have come together to create their top 100 players in men’s football list, and it’s a doozy. No criticism of the publication here, they’ve got a wide enough range of voters that questionable results aren’t really their fault. But it’s an interesting look at how footballers are perceived by the general public, and how much big tournaments influence that.

Stuart James at The Athletic has an interesting analysis of goalkeepers passing to defensive midfielders, and why it often works so well or so terribly.

Scott Willis at Cannon Stats looks into the profile of wide forward that Arsenal are looking for opposite Bukayo Saka.

Ed Malyon and Matt Hughes at FootBiz break down the proposal from Unify League, which almost certainly is not going to work.

Paul Harvey at American Soccer Analysis has a big board for the MLS SuperDraft. I’ve saved this for the bottom because I have some stuff to say but didn’t want to waste the time of anyone who doesn’t give a shit about MLS minutiae (sane people). If that’s you, thanks for reading, we’ll see you on Monday.

The MLS SuperDraft is named as such because it combined two previously separate drafts into one SUPER draft about 25 years ago. There is nothing super about it; several teams trade out of it entirely, and it is now a conference call instead of a big in-person event. It’s not even on TV.

The draft is no longer the primary mechanism for young players, and particularly young Americans and Canadians, to enter the league. Everyone has an academy and signs the best players directly from their academy, like normal football. But the NCAA is still essentially a network of hundreds of amateur clubs with qualified coaches and excellent funding. It’s also increasingly become a place for international academy washouts to get a second chance at becoming professional footballers, and surprise! Some of them get better between the ages of 18 and 23.

Paul does a great job of explaining both the value and challenges presented by the draft. But I wonder if the day is coming when MLS will take a page out of the much more civilized NWSL’s book and just scrap the thing entirely. If a couple teams want to prioritize scouting NCAA and snapping up the best prospects from that competition, well, that should be their prerogative. —KM

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