Ange Postecoglou’s words explain why Tottenham are building an unbelievable team of wonderkids
Tottenham are set to seal their fourth new arrival of the summer and Ange Postecoglou has already explained why the move is happening
There’s no doubting that Ange Postecoglou still requires transfer help for the now at Tottenham Hotspur but he will also point to what is being built for the future at the club.
Spurs are closing in on the signing of South Korean teenage winger Yang Min-hyuk from Gangwon in a deal that will see the player arrive in January a couple of months after the K League season has come to a close. It is similar in that respect to the deal that brought Lucas Bergvall to Tottenham five months after his transfer was agreed from Djurgarden in order to give him that little bit more time to develop and prepare for the move to the Premier League.
Yang will become the third South Korean signing in Tottenham’s history following in the footsteps of Lee Young-Pyo and current captain Son Heung-min
The teenager’s expected signing continues a very deliberate push this summer to secure the best young talent around from various countries, using the club’s new data-led recruitment strategy under Johan Lange and it’s no coincidence that all of the club’s permanent deals since February have been for 18-year-olds.
Bergvall arrived this month after his deal was struck under the noses of Barcelona earlier this year and then Spurs leapt in to sign Archie Gray in a £40million package with Joe Rodon heading the other way as Brentford’s attempts to sign the teenager from Leeds collapsed.
Both Gray and Bergvall have impressed not only the coaching staff but also their new Tottenham team-mates since arriving in recent weeks, both in their maturity and work-rate but also with their remarkable ability.
Yang will join them in January as one of the brightest young raw talents in Korea right now. He only turned 18 in April but two months earlier had made his K League debut for Gangwon, grabbing an assist against Jeju United. In his next game he scored against Gwangju, making him the youngest K League scorer since 2013.
Despite his age, he has started every match this season in the league for Gangwon, scoring seven goals and laying on three assists in his 24 appearances. Like the player who will no doubt rank among his idols, Son, Yang can play on either wing. In the first half of his maiden campaign as a senior player he played mostly on the left but since May onwards has switched predominantly to the right.
In most matches since that point Yang has played the full 90 minutes, showing his fitness levels and consistency at such a young age. Six of his goal involvements have come from the right and four from the left.
It is a move for Tottenham that will be backed by the data and Postecoglou himself is no stranger to looking for talent from the Asian market, something he has championed at every club he has been at. Son will likely have also given his backing to the move for his young fellow countryman, even if Yang is yet to make his debut in the South Korea senior international set-up.
That will change in the year ahead for the U17 international with his Premier League move in the offing. The teenager is also in the squad currently for the Team K League side that will face Spurs in Seoul next week during the second leg of their Asia tour
From a marketing and global fanbase perspective, Tottenham will also have a potential successor to Son lined up. The South Korean market has been hugely profitable for the north London club in expanding their fanbase across the world, with club data during their last tour to the country in 2022 claiming that 12 million people of the country’s 51 million population identify themselves as Spurs fans.
Son has been a phenomenal player for Tottenham since arriving in 2015, with 162 goals and 84 assists in 408 matches, but having turned 32 earlier this month there is only a finite number of years he can keep playing for.
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