Son Heung-min tops Sky Sports Power Rankings after game with Liverpool

Football

Published: 10 May. 2022, 15:39

Son Heung-min tops Sky Sports Power Rankings after game with Liverpool

Tottenham's Son Heung-min walks to play a corner kick during the Premier League match between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield stadium in Liverpool, England, on Saturday. [AP/YONHAP]

Tottenham's Son Heung-min, second left, celebrates with his teammates after scoring his side's opening goal during the Premier League match between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield stadium in Liverpool on Saturday. [AP/YONHAP]

Son Heung-min topped the Sky Sports Power Rankings season chart on Friday, overtaking Liverpool star Mohamed Salah after his record-breaking performance against Liverpool on Saturday.

With just three matches left to play in the season, Son reached the summit of the form chart with 71,587 points, just above second place Salah’s 71,295 points.

Players are given points based on 35 different statistics like goals, assists, blocks and tackles for the Power Rankings, taking into account the previous five match days of a season, with each previous game worth 20 percent fewer points in incremental deductions.

After Son and Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold of Liverpool is in third position with 65,115 points.

Son is currently the only Spurs player in the top 10 of the Sky Sports Power Rankings. Harry Kane is in 11th position with 54,044 points.

The Liverpool forward Salah had held the top seat of the Power Rankings season chart for almost the entire campaign until Son took that position after scoring in Tottenham’s two latest fixtures. Son has also backed 11 goals in Tottenham’s past seven league games.

On Saturday, Son scored his 20th goal this season against Liverpool, holding the top club to a 1-1 draw at Anfield, Liverpool.

This is the first time that Son reached the 20-goal mark in the Premier League in his career, surpassing his previous best, 17, from last season.

Son is now only the fifth Spurs player to make the 20th goal mark in a single season alongside Teddy Sheringham, Jurgen Klinsmann, Gareth Bale and Kane. Son is also only the second Spurs player in the history of the Premier League to reach 20 goals in a season without the benefit of a penalty, alongside former Spurs player Gareth Bale.

In the meanwhile, Salah tops the table in premier league goals this season, having scored 22. Not only is his number of goals on par with his expected goals tally of 22.43, but five of the 22 goals came from the spot. Son, on the other hand, has scored more non-penalty goals than the Egyptian player and almost doubled his expected goals of 13.11.

The records show that Son is also the most two-footed goalscorer in Premier League history. Including the two goals on May 1 against Leicester City and one goal on Saturday, all scored with his left foot, Son has scored a total of 90 goals in the Premier League. Of the 90 goals, 86 were scored by foot and 38 of those were with his left, meaning that 44 percent of his goals were scored with his left foot.

Son has the highest proportion of goals scored with his weaker foot of all players in the Premier League. This season alone, however, that proportion is even higher. Son has scored 20 goals this season, 12 of which were scored with his left foot.

The 1-1 draw on Saturday meant that Tottenham had closed the gap on fourth-placed Arsenal to just one point, but on Sunday, Arsenal beat Leeds 2-1 to widen that gap to four points.

With only the top four teams qualifying for the Champions League each season, finishing within the top four is crucial for the Premier League’s top clubs. Tottenham are currently in fifth place, four points behind Arsenal in fourth place, but it’s all up in the air with three games left.

BY YUN SO-HYANG [yun.sohyang@joongang.co.kr]