Premier League Top Scorer Betting: Son's odds cut drastically following explosive start
Tottenham's Son Heung-min has been the biggest market-mover in the Premier League top scorer betting market, cut into 10/1 after beginning the season as a huge 66/1 outsider.
The Tottenham forward has so far scored nine goals in his opening nine league appearances, and now sits second in the division's top scorer chart behind Everton's Dominic Calvert-Lewin who has 10 to his name. Interestingly, though, Son's expected goals (xG) this season is only 3.86, ranking him 14th in this particular field and substantially behind the likes of Jamie Vary (8.04), Calvert-Lewin (7.02) and his teammate Harry Kane (6.81).
This is due to Son not being an out-and-out striker like those aforementioned players. The South Korean is more of a wide-forward/winger and while he is such an attacking threat, his strengths usually lie in creating chances for Kane to capitalise on rather than the other way around.
Indeed, this has not been the case this time out, with Son only registering two assists so far and Kane - who is usually relied upon to get the bulk of the goals for the north London side - has been the one to turn provider with nine assists in as many games, ranking him highest for lay-offs in the Premier League.
Jose Mourinho has completely changed Tottenham's tactics and especially adapted the way his two main attackers operate. Kane now drops deeper to get the ball and acts as much of a creative midfielder as he does a ruthless front man - highlighted in our article yesterday. This draws out opposing centre-backs who are marking the England captain and allows room for Son to burst into the pockets of space left in behind.
We saw it at the weekend inside just five minutes as Kane dropped deep to receive a pass from Tanguy Ndombele, drawing out City's defensive line, and the Frenchman played a lofted ball over the top to the onrushing Son who burst through in on goal and slotted it calmly through Ederson's legs to put Spurs ahead. Against West Ham in October it was a similar affair as Kane took control of the ball from deep and picked out his free-scoring teammate with a beautiful ball over the top and Son duly obliged to put Tottenham in front early on.
An adapted game-plan, which has been perfectly executed by Spurs this season - especially by Son and Kane - is the reason why the South Korean has enjoyed such a glorious start to his season in front of goal, and why Kane now finds himself with the same amount of Premier League assists after just nine games than he has combined throughout the last three campaigns.
Mourinho's teams have always been heavily focussed on defence rather than attack but at Tottenham, with two of the most dangerous attacking players in world football at his disposal, it is clear that the Portuguese manager is placing more emphasis on an explosive counter-attack which can destroy teams within the blink of an eye.
And this suits Son down to the ground; as mentioned above he is not a striker or traditional No. 9 but rather a wide midfielder with damning pace who loves to run in behind and to catch sides when they are most vulnerable. Playing in a counter-attacking side alongside a player like Kane, who is now creating chances from deep as well as scoring his contractually-obliged number of goals, means that Son's talents are being utilised to their full potential.
At the start of the season the 28-year-old was a huge 66/1 shot in this market but now his odds have been cut to just 10/1, but that is a price which could still be considered decent value given just how well he is performing in Mourinho's system, and how well he is linking up with Kane - who has provided the assist for seven of his nine league goals in 2020-21.
While there is still a long way to go, at this moment in time it is certainly hard to overlook Son in this market. Although, the true test will come in the next few months as Spurs face a gruelling festive period which includes games against the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Leicester in the league, alongside matches against LASK, Ludogrets and Antwerp in Europe, and a Carabao Cup semi-final vs. Stoke on December 23.
With others in this market so short, though, I'd definitely be more inclined to get behind the 10/1 on offer for Son at this stage as that will easily start to shorten should he add a couple more goals to his tally in the next few weeks.
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