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It can take months, probably years, for a telepathic understanding to develop between two players on a soccer field. It involves a lot of trial and error, trying and failing, trying to do better next time.
But when it clicks, as in the case of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min at Tottenham Hotspur, it can quickly feel like the stars are starting to align.
José Mourinho has recently passed the one-year mark as Spurs coach and the top of the list of his accomplishments must surely be making the Son-Kane partnership run like clockwork.
As if to clinch the point, the pair combined to devastating effect Sunday afternoon in the one game every Spurs fan wants to win above everyone else.
Kane to Son. Objective. Son of Kane. Objective. Arsenal widely defeated, the gap that has been established between these two North London rivals widens a little further.
How Mikel Arteta must wish that, say, Nicolas Pepe and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had such an understanding, or Aubameyang and the forgotten Mesut Ozil.
It can be transformative for a team. Mourinho is trying hard to highlight that his Spurs team are ‘ponies’ among the Premier League thoroughbred champions.
But the fact that Tottenham are at the top of the Premier League table and below the surface cannot be ignored, Mourinho, as champion many times, will feel the blood rush.
When asked about his understanding of Son, Kane boiled it down: ‘We are both now at an age where perhaps we are reaching our prime in terms of understanding the game and understanding each other.
“When I pass him through and he’s cutting inside and putting them in the top bins, it’s an easy game for me.”
But the association, which has always been there in the five years since the South Korean joined the club, has reached a whole new level in part because of how Kane has adapted and added to his own game.
Kane, already the top scorer in English football, has added strings to his goal. Dropping selflessly deep to receive the ball, winning fights in midfield, holding the ball high, and finding his teammates doing those darts behind defense.
Far from being just a six-yard poacher, Kane at the age of 27 is now the complete forward, as attested by his season tally of 14 goals and 12 assists so far. And that’s not to mention his habit of making defensive headlines as well.
Son, meanwhile, has always been blessed with an electric beat and becomes more clinical with each passing season. Capable of outscoring just about any defender, the 28-year-old has already scored 13 goals this season and is on track to beat his best comeback for the 21-year-old Spurs in the 2016-17 season.
Mourinho quickly discovered the partner’s understanding of each other’s game and developed it to the point where Kane can play a direct pass into Son’s path with his eyes closed and vice versa.
It helps that in big games, Mourinho’s Spurs like to absorb the pressure and hit the teams on the counterattack. Thanks to Kane’s game and vision, and Son’s racing forward, they can do this to devastating effect.
As a result, they have combined 11 times for goals this season so far. A good statistic, but one that becomes very impressive when given a bit of context.
The record for goal combinations in a Premier League season is 13, between Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton, the famous ‘SAS’, during Blackburn’s 1994-95 title-winning campaign.
Here’s the context. That comeback of 13 was over the course of 42 games that season. Son and Kane have scored 11 goals, in just 11 games. It’s fair to say that the long-standing record is about to be broken.
Also the Premier League overall record of 36 goals by Chelsea duo Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard. Kane e Son now have 31 in their time playing together and have the record in their sights.
Kane has also reached 10 assists in the Premier League in record time, while Son’s 10-goal tally in the league, much to the delight of Spurs fans, is the same as that of the full Arsenal squad this season. .
However, things are a bit crooked. Sunday was the eighth time that Kane has provided the assist for a goal from Son, while it’s three backwards.
That will no doubt soon break another Premier League record: Stan Collymore provided nine for Robbie Fowler at Liverpool and Mike Newell did the same for Alan Shearer at Blackburn, both in 1995-96.
Again, that was over the course of a 38-game season. Kane and Son have nearly outshined them in just a fraction of the time.
And in the 5-2 win over Southampton in September, Kane helped Son score four goals, the first time this has happened in a Premier League match.
“They are working like animals, with all due respect for animals, I love animals, don’t get me wrong, working incredibly hard when the team didn’t have the ball,” Mourinho said of the pair after Arsenal’s victory.
If we talk about animals, surely Son must be a cheetah with his breakneck speed. Perhaps Kane is an owl in the sense that he seems to have 360-degree vision to know exactly where Son is.
Take on Kane’s assist for Son’s treble at Southampton. Son is about 20 yards behind him and Kane is actually on his back as he throws a ball over the defense directly in his path.
It’s like something out of a PlayStation football game on the easiest setting when everything you try, however bold, comes out. It certainly showed the telepathy between the two.
Something very similar happened when Kane played a long pass from 20 yards into his own half, while looking away from Son’s run, in a 3-3 tie with West Ham. Inevitably, he fell right in Son’s path.
More common is what we saw in Tottenham’s first goal against Arsenal on Sunday, scored by Son.
Kane, on the edge of the center circle in his own half, with his back to the goal, receiving and guarding the ball before sending it to his right, where he knew Son would be running. Seconds later, the Korean was making an unstoppable shot towards the far corner.
It’s something we’ll probably see a lot more of as the season progresses. However, it remains to be seen if this extraordinary partnership ends Tottenham’s long and agonizing wait for cutlery.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com
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