Gary Neville has claimed it looked like Heung-min Son questioned why he was substituted instead of Harry Kane during Tottenham’s win over Arsenal in the north London derby.
Spurs narrowed the gap to the fourth-placed Gunners to one point with a 3-0 victory at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to keep their Champions League hopes alive.
Harry Kane opened the scoring by dispatching a penalty which Son earned, before the South Korean drew two yellow cards from Arsenal defender Rob Holding to give the visitors a mountain to climb.
England captain Kane grabbed his second moments later with a stooped header, before Son found the net shortly after half-time to seal a vital three points with two games remaining.
In looking to preserve some of his players, Antonio Conte made a double change with 18 minutes to go, with Lucas Moura and Steven Bergwijn replacing Dejan Kulusevski and Son ahead of their meeting with Burnley this Sunday.
The latter was unimpressed with the Italian’s decision to substitute him after scoring his 21st Premier League goal of the season, and was seen voicing his displeasure while walking off the pitch and on the Spurs bench (Football.London).
And Neville, who was on co-commentary in N17, shared that it looked like Son wanted a reason as to why strike partner Kane was left on to see out the match instead of him.
MORE SPURS STORIES
Neville told Sky Sports: “Son, a special word. He was gutted when he came off. He told us he did not care about the golden boot and then just completely blew that out of the water with the fact that he went on a massive rant at his manager, in a nice way but it was a rant.
“I think I was reading his lips on the bench at one point and he was like, ‘Why didn’t you take Harry off and not me?’ He was absolutely fuming.
“But it is a compliment for him to be taken off because he has got that energy and imagine if something had happened in the last 10 minutes or one of the Arsenal players takes him out.
“He is big for the last two games. But he wants that 22nd goal, he wants to be level with Mo Salah, he smelt it. He had missed a big chance on the pull back.
“But it was nice to see him like that because he is so placid. He is a dream. Harry Kane is gold and Son is a dream of a player. Has he ever done anything wrong?”
Spurs Web Opinion
You can see the level of competitiveness in Son is sky-high which is what Conte wants in most, if not all of his players.
But with two crucial games to go, Conte simply couldn’t risk an injury happening which is why he had to make the change regardless of where Son is in the race for the Golden Boot.
Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
