Antonio Conte has dropped Tottenham forward Son Heung-Min from his starting XI ahead of the north London side’s Premier League clash with bottom-tabled Leicester City.
Conte has instead given the spot to £60million summer signing and former Everton Brazilian forward, Richarlison. South Korea’s Son has uncharacteristically struggled with his goalscoring form this season having yet to find the net in all of his eight games in all competitions this season and has only managed one assist in the Premier League.
Son was one of the most dangerous forward players in the Premier League last season as he found the net 23 times which and split the Golden Boot with Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah. However this campaign Son has yet to rediscover his form as he has been clearly lacking the cutting edge in front of goal with the 30-year-old again drawing a blank in Spurs’ shocking Champions League defeat to Sporting Lisbon.
Post-match in Portugal, Conte admitted that Son was not happy with his form in front of goal and that he could be dropped.
He said: ‘Sonny, for sure, he is not happy because he’s not scoring.
‘It’s normal and I like that he’s a bit angry for this situation, because it means that he wants to try to change it. We are talking about Sonny and he’s a really important player for us.
‘For sure it can happen that in some games he can’t play from the start, like Harry (Kane) also.
‘But only to protect him, to give the possibility to rest, to take care of his energy and to bring us a win. For sure I will make rotation on Saturday.’
The Italian manager will now be nursing hopes that former Everton forward Richarlison can up the ante in the game against the Foxes, with the 25-year-old having scored twice for Spurs in the Champions League win against Marseille since his move in the summer.
A win for Spurs will see them climb up the Premier League table to joint top alongside Manchester City and consequently will be two points ahead of rivals Arsenal.