Tottenham ready to sell Son Heung-Min less than a year after signing him
Tottenham ready to sell Son Heung-Min less than a year after signing him
Mauricio Pochettino is prepared to sell Son Heung-Min less than a year after the South Korean joined Tottenham Hotspur. Son could become the highest-profile casualty of Tottenham’s end-of-season collapse if the White Hart Lane club can recoup the £22million they paid Bayer Leverkusen last summer.
Other than Son, Pochettino will also listen to offers for Nabil Bentaleb and Ryan Mason as he works to make sure Spurs build on this season and do not fall at the final hurdle if they are well placed in 12 months. Son scored two goals in Tottenham’s final four games in which the club missed out on the Premier League title, second place and finishing above London rivals Woolwich.
But the 23-year-old was dragged off at half-time in
Tottenham’s 5-1 defeat to Newcastle United for a performance that left some of his team-mates enraged and may have sealed his fate under Pochettino.
Pochettino hinted after the game that the display had helped to make his mind up on a couple of issues ahead of the summer and it is understood he was referring to both Son and Mason, who was also substituted at the break. Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is said to have been humiliated by the team’s capitulation, but has vowed to back Pochettino over any players he now wishes to sell and bring in.
Levy’s biggest problem will be to find a club willing to offer the £22m Tottenham paid for Son, following an unspectacular first season in English football that was disrupted by injury.
Son is still highly rated in Germany and Spurs will hope to attract the interest of Bundesliga clubs. If they can’t, then the South Korea international will face a big battle to start games under Pochettino next season.
Bentaleb, who had been considered one of Tottenham’s brightest young players, only made 10 appearances in all competitions this season and will be allowed to leave for around £10m.
Spurs will also demand a similar fee for Mason, who has already been linked with a move to Bournemouth as part of a Tottenham bid for striker Callum Wilson.
Mason has been at Tottenham since the age of eight, but will slip even further down the pecking order this summer when Pochettino signs at least one new midfielder.
Other than working to sign at least one new forward and strengthen the midfield, Levy and Pochettino will fight hard to keep all of Tottenham’s stars this summer – including Christian Eriksen, who has emerged as a target of Juventus.
Eriksen’s current Spurs deal only has two years to run, but the club are in talks about extending that contract rather than entertaining the thought of selling the Dane.
Mousa Dembele, who missed the final two games of the season through suspension, has admitted the pressure of the title race got to him in the moment in which he scratched at the eye of Chelsea striker Diego Costa.
The Belgian midfielder was retrospectively banned for six matches, which means he will miss the first four games of next season. “Things happen and my intention was not to do something bad to him,” said Dembele.
“It’s an emotional game, you react to things and now I have to learn from this. I’m not proud of this, it’s not my habit to be that emotional.
“I’m very disappointed about the six game ban, I know [the FA] wants to leave a message, but I can’t keep on being disappointed about that.
“The fans saw passion out there, sometimes a little too much. But we showed our fans we wanted to win it. Hopefully we can bring this passion and go better next year.”
Now you've fucking done it.
