Tottenham Hotspur travel to Selhurst Park tomorrow evening to take on Crystal Palace in the Premier League, with kick-off at 8 pm BST and the match live on Sky Sports. Read the match preview here, and the team news here. More quotes from Antonio Conte on Spurs’ injury issues and potential transfer activity can be read here, and have your say on tomorrow’s match on the Vital Spurs fan forum here.
When asked about Heung-min Son’s woes this season, with the South Korean looking a shadow of his usual self, Conte said:
“Son for sure is trying to find the best form. After the injury he had against Marseille, he struggle a bit and also in the World Cup he didn’t score”, said the Italian to Football.London.
“But we are talking about a player that if we put him in this discussion, we are in trouble because Sonny and Kane are the two most important players with Hugo Lloris.
“If we start to put into discussion them or to have doubts about them, then I think we are really in trouble.”
Indeed, the problem for Conte is that those three players have looked sluggish at various points of the year. The obvious one here is Son, who has so far been registering an all-time low average per 90 Premier League minutes across all of an attacker’s key metrics since joining from Bayer Leverkusen in 2015: 0.16 goals per 90 minutes, a pass completion rate of 69.1%, 0.9 successful dribbles, 27.7 passes received and 2.5 loose balls recovered (via The Athletic).
Meanwhile, Lloris has looked more and more like a liability this season, being responsible for 3 of the 5 goals that Spurs have conceded from individual errors in the Premier League this season.
Admittedly, Kane has been the best of the lot, but on Sunday, and throughout most of the World Cup, as he did for the majority of the Brentford match, has also looked shot at times, and has missed more penalties this season than he has in his entire career so far.
Speaking of his attackers, Conte reiterated his quotes from Sunday’s defeat to Villa, bemoaning the lack of adequate options ready to come in for any out-of-form or injured forwards:
“I remember very well that I said in our team when we miss two or three important players we have problems. Other situations I don’t remember [what I said], honestly. If you want to put words in my mouth, I’m not the right person. I remember I said if you have four players, the strikers who are usually the creative players, and two are injured, we are in trouble.
“Because we have two players [left] and then we have Gil – who is a good player who understands football very well but he is a young player and you have to try to give him time, to wait and then have a ready player.
“Now Gil is playing. The last game, honestly he satisfied my expectation and probably he’s going to play tomorrow, I don’t know but it’s possible, but I remember I said not that I feel the lack of [certain] players.
“I said when we have two players injured especially up front, we are in difficulty. You can see this. I don’t know why you have to put words I never said [to me]. I said without two players, especially up front, we are in trouble.”
Conte then took a more positive stance when addressing the club’s reporters about the potential replacements for Rodrigo Bentancur and Yves Bissouma in the middle of the park, Pape Sarr and Oliver Skipp:
“It could be the first time (start in Premier League) for Pape and Skippy, last season, he played two or three months with me in a fantastic way, before he had his injury and stayed six months out”, Conte told the club’s official website.
“We are talking about a young player who showed his quality. My expectation is to see him again at the same level as last season. I’m sure if he starts tomorrow, he will play a great game.”
Conte then spoke about how Dejan Kulsuevski’s doubts for tomorrow’s match presented another opportunity for Bryan Gil to follow up his first Premier League start against Villa at the weekend, and earmarked some praise for him and some of the club’s other young players:
“Otherwise, it’s another chance for Bryan Gil. He is one of the young players that we are working on, a really good prospect, players who have a brilliant future.
“I’m talking Gil, Skippy, Pape Sarr, Spence, Sessegnon, also, Emerson is only 23, Harvey White, players who are growing.”