Koreans in Europe: Son Heung-min scores at both ends in chaotic 3-3 draw with City

Football

Published: 04 Dec. 2023, 08:30 Updated: 04 Dec. 2023, 17:38

Koreans in Europe: Son Heung-min scores at both ends in chaotic 3-3 draw with City

Tottenham's Son Heung-min, center, scores the opening goal during a Premier League match against Manchester City and at the Etihad in Manchester on Sunday. [AP/YONHAP]

Sunday night Premier League games rarely resemble Sunday league football as much as Tottenham Hotspur’s topsy-turvy clash with Manchester City over the weekend, with Spurs captain Son Heung-min setting the tone for the 3-3 game with two goals in the first 10 minutes — one at each end of the pitch.

Son was, to borrow a cliché, everything, everywhere all at once — for better or worse.

The Spurs captain opened the scoring just six minutes in on a rapid breakaway from a City corner, beating Jérémy Doku in a foot race to pick up a Dejan Kulusevski through ball and holding off the Belgian winger to take it into the box and beat Ederson for the early lead.

That 1-0 advantage did not last long. Just 137 seconds later, Son caught a deflection from an Erling Haaland flick and knocked it past Guglielmo Vicario to tie things up at 1-1.

Those two goals put Son in the record books twice over — firstly as the only player in Premier League history to score on the road against four reigning champions and secondly as the second player ever to score both a goal and an own goal in the first 10 minutes of a Premier League game, after Gareth Barry for Aston Villa in 1999.

Tottenham's Son Heung-min, wearing the No. 7, scores an own goal during a Premier League match against Manchester City and at the Etihad in Manchester on Sunday. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

With Son’s own personal K-drama mostly played out within the first 10 minutes, the momentum shifted to City and it was Phil Foden that put the home side up in the 31st minute.

Spurs tied things up again after the break, Son assisting Giovani Lo Celso in the 69th minute with a deflection off the woodwork and into the back of the net.

City again pulled ahead, this time with Jack Grealish scoring in the 81st minute, only for Brennan Johnson to set up Kulusevski to head in the ball in the 90th.

When the dust settled, that left a final score of 3-3 with eight shots on target, eight yellow cards and a scoresheet that reads more like the final of the East London Barking & Dagenham League than a midseason clash between two Premier League heavyweights.

Sift through all that drama and it does end up looking slightly more like a win for Spurs than City.

The north London side snapped a three-game losing streak to take their first point since a 2-1 win over Crystal Palace in October. City, meanwhile, took their third straight game without a win for the first time since 2017 (and, a bit more obscurely, their third straight game without a win despite leading at some point since 2009).

More importantly, Sunday’s game is something of a rallying call for the Ange Postecoglou fans.

Tottenham’s Australian manager, whose golden touch carried Spurs to the top of the table early in the season, faced off against a strong City side with a weakened lineup and a bench that included two goalkeepers and five players that were yet to set foot on a Premier League pitch.

But solid tactics and discipline managed to prevail — sort of. After three defeats and a lot of obvious comments about Spurs returning to the form that has kept them out of trophy territory for 60 years (except for that one League Cup), Sunday’s game proved that Ange Ball is still alive in N17, even if it went quiet for a few weeks.

“First half we were lucky to still be in it to be honest,” Postecoglou said after the game. “City could have blown us away during that period. They certainly had enough chances to do so. We had no real conviction or belief in what we were doing, we were giving the ball away a lot.

“We hung in there I guess. It was similar to us last week that we lost a lot of chances but sometimes in football you give the opposition a chance. We had to just calm down at half-time and the effort the boys put in during the second half was outstanding.

“Again it's very easy to get blown away at this arena against such a great team, but we hung in there and we made it uncomfortable for City I thought in the whole second half.”

Spurs will be back in action on Thursday as midweek football returns to the Premier League, taking on London rivals West Ham at home. The club will then stay at home through the weekend as they face Newcastle on Sunday.

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