Tottenham: With Son out, why Saturday Bryan Gil’s chance to shine?
By Aaron Coe
With the injuries to Heung-Min Son and Steven Bergwijn, Saturday should be Bryan Gil’s coming-out party for Tottenham Hotspur against Crystal Palace.
The news coming out of N17 during Nuno Espirito Santo’s press conference about Heung-Min Son was not good. Anytime a coach is talking bout waiting for the medical staff to make an announcement or clarify it is not a positive situation.
While the status of Steven Bergwijn is not as clear, what we do know is that Bryan Gil was signed for exactly this situation to step in and fill the void on the left-wing. Here are three reasons, we expect a big day from the young Spaniard Saturday at Selhurst Park.
Bryan Gil will create shots and chances for Tottenham
Statistically speaking, Bryan Gil actually creates more shots in 90 minutes than does Heung-Min Son. Please understand I am not saying Bryan is anywhere near the level of Son. However, there are some areas of the young man’s game that are flat-out outstanding, and creating shots is one of them that he does on a level comparable to the Spurs superstar.
According to FBref.com on a per 90-minute basis last season, Bryan made 3.87 shot-creating actions, whereas Son made 3.38. Ultimately, the actions from Son led to a lot more goals, as the South Korean had 10 assists compared to Bryan’s 3 in league play. The greater success in leading to goals for Son translated into .43 goal-creating actions per 90 compared to .32 per 90 for Bryan.
With the quality of the targets vastly improved for Bryan with Harry Kane in the middle, we should expect this volume of shot-creating actions to lead to more goal-creating actions for Tottenham than it did for either Eibar or Sevilla last season. Assuming Bryan can even create three attempts for Kane on Saturday against Palace, we can expect an assist in return, as we saw in the Conference League.