What to expect from Spurs and Wolves as the 2022-23 Premier League season kicks off

Football

Published: 04 Aug. 2022, 15:24 Updated: 16 Aug. 2022, 12:34

What to expect from Spurs and Wolves as the 2022-23 Premier League season kicks off

Tottenham Hotspur's Son Heung-min (left) celebrates after scoring a goal against Norwich City at Carrow Road Stadium in Norwich on May 22. [AP/YONHAP]

There’s one question on most Korean fans’ minds as the 2022-23 Premier League season kicks off Saturday: Can reigning Golden Boot winner Son Heung-min do it again?

Ask the man himself, however, and he’s likely far more interested in seeing if this could be the season that sees Tottenham Hotspur snap a 62-year dry spell to lift the league trophy for the first time since 1961.

Under the leadership of Antonio Conte, Spurs enter the 2022-23 season looking far more like championship contenders than they have for a very long time.

The club has spent over £100 million during the summer transfer window, creating a robust lineup with no obvious areas of weakness.

Tottenham kicked off their preseason training here in Korea, playing two exhibition games, against a team of the K League’s best players and La Liga club Sevilla. While the results of those two games were fairly mixed, the performance during training and on the pitch suggested that with a few more weeks of training, the new Spurs squad could be seriously threatening in the coming season.

With the best part of a month of Conte’s infamously grueling preseason training now under their belts, the Spurs squad that take to the pitch against Southampton on Saturday ought to be as battle ready as it is possible to be.

Tottenham warm up during a training session ahead of a match against Team K-league at Seoul World Cup Stadium in western Seoul on July 11. [AP/YONHAP]

Tottenham will start that first game without recent addition Richarlison, who has a one-match ban for throwing a lit flare into the crowd while playing for Everton last season, but most of the rest of the squad are looking fit ahead of the start of the season.

Even Britain’s bookmakers, responsible for setting betting odds, a major part of British football culture, think Spurs have a fighting chance this season. Most bookmakers have Tottenham with the third-best odds to top the table at the end of the season, after Manchester City in first place and Liverpool.

Ladbrokes, one of the biggest bookmakers, has Spurs at 12-to-1 odds to top the table, noting the addition of Richalison, Yves Bissouma, Ivan Perisic, Clement Lenglet, Djed Spence and Fraser Forster. Manchester City are on significantly better 4-to-6 odds and Liverpool at 13-to-5, but Spurs still sit in third place.

Whether Son can take the Golden Boot for a second year in a row is a far harder question to answer. The Korean striker ranks at No. 5 on the bookmakers’ odds, likely largely due to the fact that he is not Tottenham’s regular penalty taker.

Without those penalties, the chance of Son climbing back to the top of the top scorer table is significantly slimmer than the likes of Mo Salah and Harry Kane, who received a certain amount of prepackaged opportunities in the form of spot kicks.

Son certainly still has the form he maintained at the end of the last season. He has remained active throughout the summer with the Korean national team, a good thing in that he shouldn’t need a run up to the new season, but potentially a bad thing in terms of energy levels and injury risk.

How Son lines up in front of goal with the addition of Richarlison also remains to be properly seen. The Brazilian’s versatility is likely to prove an asset to Son’s goal-scoring chances, and his longstanding partnership with Harry Kane and recent success with Dejan Kulusevski will only help those chances.

But Son isn’t the only Korean player in the Premier League. Hwang Hee-chan returns for his second season with Wolverhampton Wanderers this season with a brand new contract and lots to prove.

Hwang Hee-chan appears for Wolverhampton Wanderers in a game against Arsenal in London on Feb. 24. [XINHUA/YONHAP]

Hwang joined the midlands club on loan last year, with Wolves converting that to a permanent contract over the summer. After an explosive start to his Premier League career, Hwang struggled to build any momentum in the second half of the season following his return from a hamstring injury.

Hwang scored five goals for Wolves last year, but four of them came in his first six games with the club. The Korean midfielder ended the season on a 13-game dry spell, something he will be keen to snap out of quickly in the next few weeks.

Wolves finished the 2021-22 season right in the middle of the table in 10th place. Not much has changed in terms of transfers, so manager Bruno Lage will be looking to make better use of what he already has this year.

Wolves enter the 2022-23 season with one of the best defenses in the Premier League. Goalkeeper Jose Sa was statistically the best in the league last season and captain Conor Coady holds together an incredibly robust back line.

The big question for Wolves is what happens to Raul Jimenez. The Mexican forward missed eight months after a potentially career ending head injury, and his departure had a direct impact on Wolves’ performance. If Jimenez is able to return at some point this season, it could also help turn things around for Wolves.

Wolves will face Leeds United in their first game of the 2022-23 season on Saturday.

England isn’t the only place that will see some action this weekend — the 2022-23 Bundesliga season will also kick off on Saturday.

Lee Jae-sung of Mainz plays in a Bundesliga match against TSG Hoffenheim in Mainz, Germany on Feb. 5. [XIHUA/YONHAP]

Four Koreans are active in the Bundesliga: Lee Jae-sung of Mainz, Jeong Woo-yeong of Freiburg, Lee Dong-jun of Hertha Berlin and Lee Dong-gyeong of Schalke 04. All four could see action this weekend, with Lee Jae-sung highly likely to make the Mainz starting lineup.

Mainz will start their season with a game against VfL Bochum on Saturday, with Freiburg taking on Augsburg and Hertha facing local rivals Union Berlin on the same day. Schalke will play Köln on Sunday.

The Italian Serie A, where Kim Min-jae plays for Napoli, and Spanish La Liga, where Lee Kang-in plays for Mallorca, will start their seasons next week. The French Ligue 1 also starts this Saturday, but with the demotion of Bordeaux there are currently no Koreans active in the league.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]