Tottenham Hotspur have been eliminated from the FA Cup.
Championship outfit Middlesbrough humbled their Premier League counterparts last night with a 1-0 victory after extra time at the Riverside.
It was an awful performance by Tottenham and, in particular, Son Heung-min.
Son’s performance will have surprised Spurs manager Antonio Conte more than the defeat.
The South Korea attacker has been a genuinely world-class asset for the Lilywhites since joining for £22 million in 2015 [The Guardian].
However, he was totally off the pace against Boro – and his statistics illustrate precisely that.
Rather shockingly, Son conceded possession no fewer than 24 times for Tottenham last night – and also missed two big chances [SofaScore].
Normally so clinical, nobody would care about Son losing the ball so often if he had converted even one of those two goalscoring opportunities and, ultimately, the North Londoners have paid a massive penalty.
Worryingly, this isn’t an isolated incident from the former Bayer Leverkusen forward.
For whatever reason, his form under the Italian manager these past couple of months has been extremely erratic and with Tottenham bidding for Champions League qualification, well he needs to buck up his ideas rapidly.
An on-form Son is a player who could seriously benefit his teammates in the race to secure a top-four finish in the Premier League.
An out-of-form Son, however, isn’t much help to anyone, as he proved against a second-tier team on Tuesday.
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