German magazine Kicker has a sentence in their latest edition which is quite profound: ‘Sometimes the value of a player is measured by the fact that he does not play from the beginning.’
The player being talked about is Tottenham’s Son Heung-min, and Mauricio Pochettino giving him a little rest ahead of the Champions League clash with Bayer Leverkusen.
Kicker headline their article ‘The Lost Son’, and it almost feels like Bayer Leverkusen have lost him twice. Once when he originally move to Tottenham, and again over the past few months. Bayer Leverkusen wanted to sign Son over the summer, and as soon as the window shut there were many German reports about Bayer returning in January.
It was felt Son wasn’t crucial for Pochettino, so a return to Bayer would make sense for everyone involved, with the Bundesliga club prepared to pay Tottenham a high transfer fee to do business.
That’s clearly not happening now, given Son’s great form, and how important he’s been for Tottenham. Despite leaving Bayer under a cloud, with accusations of forcing through a late move, there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot of negativity towards Son, probably because of how much the club wanted to buy him back.
It seems to be in the script that Son scores against his old club, like he did for Bayer against Hamburg, and that would just rub it in further for the German side.
