CityVP Manjit

5 years ago · 3 min. reading time · ~10 ·

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Korean Cat Among the Magpies

Korean Cat Among the Magpies

Korean Cat
, among
» the Magpies

CityVP Manjit

At the end of the game, the increasingly visible flags from South Korea were noticeable and so has been the scoring process of South Korea's emerging star Heung-Min Son.  The Magpies is the nickname for Newcastle United who play in black and white striped shirts.  Newcastle has always been a club with one of the most passionate supporter base in the world and considerably underperforming in relationship to that die hard support base. 

Even when Newcastle fell into the lower divisions after relegation, there was still 50,000 people attending matches at St.James Park (or whatever the commercial name for that stadium is due to naming rights), and in many ways if Tottenham fans would bemoan their relatively meager history of silverware, Newcastle fans have far more to feel agreived about, let alone that the present Newcastle owner has notoriously not invested in new players, until that is Newcastle paid a club record fee from an MLS player from Atlanta United.   That record fee was only 21 million pounds.  Compare that with teams like Leicester City spending $100,000 on new players just in the season to date, shows how minimal the investments have been.   Then again that is 21 million more than the Tottenham chairman spent in this and the last transfer window.   At least Tottenham did spend 26 million last January to acquire Lucas Moura, so every little bit helps.

The normal phrase we hear is about putting a cat among the pigeons, but earlier today it was seeing a Korean Cat being put among the Magpies.  He only needed one fierce strike to have rescued yet another win from the jaws of a draw.  In the process Spurs broke the league team record of not drawing a game - reaching 29 games so far where the team has not ended up drawing a game.  Yet against Cardiff and Newcastle, without Heung Min-Son's contributions in each game, that would have been two draws

While the goal Son scored against Cardiff was a fierce shot struck with ruthless intention, he did the same today but this time straight at the goalkeeper.  Newcastle goalkeeper Martin Dúbravka got his positioning all wrong and the ball took an unkind bounce that left him watching the ball rise just over him, though still at saveable height.  Dúbravka is normally a very reliable goalkeeper and has been an excellent addition to Rafa Benetiz's squad.  The ball did come through a crowd of players and it was coming at speed but the keeper should have been able to save it 99 times out of 100 on other occasions.   The important thing however was that Son hit with an intensity and kept his shot low, something Erik Lamela could not do when he snatched his shot to the crossbar and Lucas Moura who was no where near finishing off a very well delivered ball into the Newcastle penalty box. 

Not playing Llorente was a surprise, but when he did come on, he did show glimpses of what Harry Kane is known for other than scoring, which is to hold up the ball to bring in his teammates.  Kane simply has a much greater level of personal confidence and a goal-scorers mindset.   Kane not only works incredibly hard in practice, the goals he achieves are not simply because he takes the most chances, but because the work he puts on the training ground to perfect his game.   He may be considered to be a natural scorer and someone who is now considered one of the world's best players but it is work ethic coupled with his positively selfish desire to score as many goals as he can, which combine to make him the kind of ruthless finisher that Son is also adding to his game.

The two Cup defeats may now end up being a blessing in disguise.  The praise this Tottenham team is receiving from Pep Guardiola indicates that Pep is not simply trying to push some of the title pressure back onto Tottenham, but he geniunely see's Tottenham as a title threat even though both his team and Liverpool have won at Tottenham's temporary ground at Wembley.  Another piece of good fortune for Tottenham is that Manchester City now have to move a league game at Everton to this Wednesday and Everton's Marco Silva is under heavy pressure to reverse a string of really bad results, exemplified with Everton's 3-1 loss at home against Wolves on Saturday.   While Manchester City moved back into second place with their own 3-1 win home to Arsenal today, the real cat among the pigeons game is West Ham United at least as the title race is concerned, because if West Ham upsets Liverpool and City drop points against Everton on Wednesday, then Tottenham are in pole position to make a run for the title with only 13 games to go and no domestic cup games to distract them.

Victory in the Round of 16 on Tuesday against Borrusia Dortmund is still very important, for the simple reason that at the knock out stages of the Champions League each winning round is worth multi-million dollars.  That is why Mauricio Pochettino puts his faith in focusing on getting into the Top 4 rather than his primary focus being on winning the title and why he related the word "ego" to winning a trophy. 

Prize Money for Champions League [from Wikipedia Data]

Base fee for group stage: €15,250,000 Group match victory: €2,700,000 Group match draw: €900,000 Round of 16: €9,500,000 Quarter-finals: €10,500,000 Semi-finals: €12,000,000 Losing finalist: €15,000,000 Winning the Final: €19,000,000

That is why seeing this Korean cat (Heung Min-Son) scoring against the Magpies (Newcastle United) the example that other Tottenham players can model, as to what it takes to both win patches but more importantly to win titles.




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