Antonio Conte has revealed that all of his Tottenham players will have to accept that rotation is part of the process this season, including Heung-min Son.
Son has started every single match for Spurs across all competitions so far this season, although he has only completed 90 minutes on two occasions (TransferMarkt).
The South Korean has cut a frustrated figure on the bench after being taken off early at times over the past two months, and is yet to open his account in front of goal.
Meanwhile, Harry Kane, Richarlison, and Dejan Kulusevski are all up and running for the Lilywhites this season, despite Son being Tottenham’s top Premier League goalscorer last time out.
In his pre-match press conference for the Sporting Lisbon match in the Champions League tomorrow, Conte was asked whether he would rotate Son out of the starting XI at some point.
He replied (Football London): “I think when you try to build something important, with ambition and try to be competitive and win, you have to change old habits, otherwise you stay in balance and you don’t want to have ambition.
“For this reason, all the players have to accept that rotation is part of this aspect. We have four players [up front] and it’s very difficult right now to drop one.
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“I have to take the best decision, sometimes for the players. Sometimes it’s better to come in for 20-30 minutes for them.
“I’m here to change the habit. The habit was that the players were used to playing all the time. Big clubs have a big squad. At the moment we don’t have a big squad but we have just started this process.”
Spurs Web Opinion:
Conte is bang on here. Big clubs don’t play the same players week-in week-out for an entire season. You keep standards high and legs fresh by rotating each week or so. And Spurs now have the depth to do that up front without compromising quality.
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