Tottenham Hotspur have endured their fair share of frustration this season, with Ange Postecoglou’s ambitious project stunted by an unrelenting surge of injuries.
It’s left Spurs stranded in 14th place in the Premier League, with the poor and lasting form eradicating any hopes of qualifying for European competition next season through the top flight.
However, Postecoglou’s side are still in the FA Cup, meeting Aston Villa at Villa Park later today, and finished fourth in the league phase of the Europa League, bypassing the additional knockout round.
There’s hope yet that an exciting finish to the campaign could be forged from the scalding flames of recent months, with Son Heung-min captaining the side and eyeing a maiden piece of silverware.
The skipper is now 32 and has come under fire for some of his performances this term, but he’s still a major influence capable of driving the Lilywhites forward.
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ByBarney Lane Son Heung-min's season in numbers
In 2015, Tottenham signed Son from Bayer Leverkusen for a reported £22m fee when he was 23 years old. The dynamic forward has since forged a fine career for himself in England, posting 172 goals and 92 assists across 440 appearances and being hailed for his “world-class” quality by Postecoglou last season.
Having taken the armband from the departed Harry Kane at the beginning of Ange’s tenure, Son has been the standout attacker, and even though he’s discernibly on the decline in regard to athleticism and energy this term, he’s still scored 10 goals and supplied 8 assists across 32 matches in all competitions.
Son’s still got enough in the tank to play a big part for his long-served side, but there’s no doubt that he’s struggling, and the recruitment to aid him on the left flank hasn’t been good enough.
Timo Werner is playing in his second successive loan spell at the club and was singled out for his lack of fight and determination by Postecoglou in December, with the Australian manager saying it was “not acceptable”.
Moreover, Wilson Odobert is dealing with a long-term injury after joining from Burnley for £25m last summer – the 20-year-old only featured three times in the league, failing to hit the target or create a big chance while also failing with 68% of his dribbles, as per Sofascore.
Rewarded for his loyalty with a new contract in January, the veteran forward needs to be playing with a higher calibre of support, more energy and impetus. He can’t play twice a week to the same level anymore, and given that Spurs are struggling for players to compete with Son, our mind is cast back to Steven Bergwijn.
Spurs must rue losing Steven Bergwijn
Son is still a potent attacking force. Technically, the South Korean captain is still one of Postecoglou’s best players and his goal record reflects his value.
1
Brennan Johnson
32
12
2
Dominic Solanke
29
11
3
Son Heung-min
32
10
=4
James Maddison
31
9
=4
Dejan Kulusevski
38
9
However, his underlying energy has been diminished, with pundits such as Sky Sports’ Jamie Redknapp picking up on the changes.
With Son’s aforementioned positional peers struggling to impose themselves, Bergwijn’s particular approach could have gone down a treat in this Postecoglou system.
Plainly, Son is a victim of the system crashing this season and would have benefited greatly from a more stable, less injury-affected campaign, but instead, he’s toiling.
Bergwijn, 27, is now playing his third season since leaving the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, but his energy and potency in front of goal would have been the perfect mix to lessen Son’s load and play off the left flank when he tires in Ange’s fast-paced team.
Tottenham signed Bergwijn from PSV Eindhoven for a fee in the region of £25m in January 2020, but the electric-paced winger only managed to score 8 goals across 83 matches for the north Londoners.
Embroiled in the thick of Antonio Conte’s downfall, Bergwijn was set up to fail.
Now playing for Al-Ittihad in the Saudi Pro League, Bergwijn has enjoyed a healthy return of seven goals and seven assists over 24 matches this season, though his athletic metrics further underscore the quality that Tottenham are missing on their left flank.
He has averaged 4.3 successful duels, 1.8 dribbles and 1.2 tackles per game in the league this term, as per Sofascore, perfectly illustrating the kind of robust style of play that would be so well suited to Postecoglou’s free-flowing and high-octane football.
Moreover, the 27-year-old has been hailed as a “big-game monster” in the past by journalist John Cross – something that Spurs could have done with, for example, at Anfield earlier this week, with Son branded with a 5/10 match score by Football.london’s Alasdair Gold after his performance, where he was singled out for his inability to get on the ball against Liverpool.
The saving grace is that Tottenham were able to recoup £26m for the failed signing, who fled back to the Dutch Eredivisie to sign with Ajax in July 2022.
However, given that Spurs turned their transfer cannon toward Richarlison, signing the Brazilian for a whopping £60m fee, it’s perhaps less satisfactory.
Ultimately, Bergwijn was “unlucky at Spurs” – a comment made by pundit and ex-Spurs goalkeeper Paul Robinson – and it’s quite possible that in different circumstances, perhaps under Postecoglou, he would have enjoyed far greater success in the Premier League.
He’s still firmly in his ostensible prime years, and thus, the likes of Daniel Levy must have some big regrets about letting him leave, for he could have been the perfect option to mitigate Son’s struggles at present.
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