Heung-min Son starred for Spurs in a big 3-1 over Leicester City, helping push Tottenham Hotspur ahead of Arsenal in the race for the top four.
Coming in two points back of Arsenal and having a trip to Anfield looming next week, Tottenham Hotspur had to take all three points against Leicester City. On a day when Spurs were not their best, a star performance from Son led Spurs past the pesky Foxes.
It was indeed Sonny’s day for Spurs, although it took a while for Tottenham to get going.
Lloris with big early play for Spurs
Although the game was open, and Spurs looked brighter than they did against Brentford early, Leicester had an early chance to take the lead. Ben Davies could not tackle Boubakary Soumare, who rolled off Davies’s shoulder-to-shoulder challenge like a bowling ball.
Soumare could get a cross-off to Patson Daka, who hit the first-time ball toward the near post. Watching live, it looked like Daka had beaten Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris but did not beat the post. On replay, we saw that Lloris had just enough of a fingertip on the ball to push it into the post and keep the game level.
Although he was beaten off the fingertips in injury-time by Kelechi Iheancho and lost his shutout, the first-half save was huge in the game’s flow, with Sonny and Spurs stepping up from there.
Story continues…
Son has a hand in three goals for Tottenham
After going a couple of games without a goal or an assist, Sonny was back providing both for Spurs on Sunday. The first goal came from something rather unexpected, a set piece.
Tottenham had just had a free-kick from a decent angle, and the Foxes needed a deflection to keep a shot off-target and force a corner. From their first corner, Son hit a perfect ball that just skimmed over the head of Ayoze Perez at the near post. Harry Kane was running in and timing his header to perfection just behind Perez.
The ball flashed off Kane’s head and past Kasper Schmeichel, giving Tottenham the all-important first goal. It was a bang-bang play, with an excellent delivery followed by a professional finish. It was the most significant moment of the match for Kane, but Son was just getting started.
Kulusevski is back in action for Spurs
In a surprise move, Lucas Moura started in the front three for Tottenham, ahead of Dejan Kulusevski. Although Moura had a few moments in the match, he was primarily quiet and was replaced by Kulusevski 10 minutes into the second half. Deki immediately impacted Spurs as he shrugged off Leicester defenders and started attacking with the ball.
As the game was opening up and Spurs were ramping up the pressure, a massive tackle from Cristian Romero to keep the play in the Foxes’ defensive half got Spurs going. The tackle from Romero popped the ball to Emerson Royal, who quickly moved it to Deki. Kulusevski knew what to do from there as he dribbled toward the goal and then touched the ball central to Son.
Sonny quickly turned to his left and slotted the ball back to the right past Schmeichel for the 2-0 Spurs lead. It was an excellent team goal for Spurs and showed immediate impact from the substitute.
Son strikes a worldie
Up by two and seemingly cruising, Kulusevski and Son connected one more time. It will likely be Deki’s most straightforward assist ever as it simply laid the ball back to Son. The South Korean, on the other hand, hit a beauty. Sonny again went left and saw nothing but space striking a curler that crashed in the side-netting, upper 90 past a sprawling Schmeichel for a 3-0 Spurs lead.
The shot was so incredible that Pierre Hojbjerg put his hands on his head behind Son as the ball curved into the goal.
It would have been nicer as a 3-0 win, but Iheanacho did steal one back in injury time.
Regardless, Son and Spurs did what they needed to do and took all three points, pushing Spurs past Arsenal, with the Gunners still to play. The match was exactly what Spurs required on a day when Son was shining.