After a tough first season in North London and a shaky start to the 23/24 campaign, it was incredible to see Richarlison score nine goals in eight games, with four of those coming in Son’s absence. Of course, the Korean captain had plenty of praise for the Brazilian striker.
Speaking with Spursplay, the winger talked about his return from national team duty and specifically noted the brilliant performances from Richarlison over the past few months when asked about their proximity in the golden boot race:
“I hope he can get a golden boot, why not? He’s doing an amazing job for the team. Obviously he had a frustrating year, but for him I had no doubt… he’s the Brazilian number nine striker.”
It’s certainly true that over the past three months, since recovering from surgery, Richy has looked like a completely different player:
“He had a couple of issues with his body, I kept telling him that you have to try and fix it because it’s worth it [and]…. I had a similar situation as him. He’s stepped up amazingly, so as a teammate I want to help him as much as I can and why not? He has to believe he can win the golden boot.”
With Son’s 12 goals and Richarlison’s 10, the two players have worked their way into joining the list of the top-eight scorers in the league. Their goal output has been excellent this year, and they’re receiving support from all over the pitch.
Dejan Kulusevski currently has six goals to his name, while summer signings Brennan Johnson and James Maddison have added three each.
It’s fair to say that the pressure will be on for each of the players to continue contributing goals week in and week out. However, with both of them finally back to full fitness, their collective presence and newly-established chemistry on the pitch should allow the pair to feed off one another, which will hopefully see them add assists to their tallies as well.
Spurs’ star forward Son Heung-min has finally made his return to North London following South Korea’s semi-final loss to Jordan in the AFC Asian Cup. The leading scorer for the team was surely missed across the past month and a half, leaving supporters wondering when they might see him back in action. Now, it seems that Big Ange has an answer for us.
In his most recent press conference, the Spurs boss stated very plainly that “Sonny got back on Wednesday, did recovery on Thursday but trained with the team today.” When asked about whether the captain was ready to start, along with other players like Yves Bissouma and Giovani Lo Celso whose fitness was previously unknown, the gaffer commented “Definitely Sonny and Biss. They trained well. Gio trained all week but he’s obviously missed a fair bit of football so we’ll have to see how he is and whether we give him another week or not.”
Clearly, there’s a difference between being “ready” to start, and actually starting. Nevertheless, if Ange feels that Son is up to his full fitness, there’s little reason to think that Timo Werner will start in his stead.
The question many fans have also been asking themselves is how prolific will a Sonny and in-form Richarlison be? The Brazilian striker has now scored nine goals across his last eight league appearances, numbers which look staggeringly better than earlier this campaign, where he scored just one goal in ten matches.
Postecoglou is, perhaps, wondering the same thing: will Richy fall back into Sonny’s shadow, or revel in his good form and build off the captain’s positive energy and forward play? Saturday’s fixture will surely tell us, should both players start.
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