Former Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou has leapt to the defence of Son Heung-min in a pre-match press conference ahead of Tottenham Hotspur's trip to Bournemouth tonight (Thursday).
The exchange echoed his Celtic days – particularly during his first season at the club, when his side were all but written off after a turbulent start to the 2021/22 Scottish Premiership campaign.
During this period, his had side slipped several points behind then league leaders (and reigning champions) Rangers.
Speaking of the Spurs captain's perceivably weaker start to the Premier League – the player having only scored four goals in his last 12 appearances; just one from open-play – Postecoglou said it'd be foolish to write him off.
"Go for it! It might help me if you write him off," he said. "I don’t get that sense. I still feel from a physical output and the quality he has and certainly from a mentality point of view, I haven’t seen it.
"What I do know is, from my own experience, the end comes pretty quickly. It’s not falling off a cliff, but you find with a lot of great players that all of a sudden it’s gone from bang to bang. It’s not a slow deterioration.
"I don’t see that in Sonny, I still think he’s got a hell of a lot of quality and from a physical standpoint, the way he looks after himself, I don’t see his abilities diminishing just due to the age factor at the moment. I don’t see that.
"So, the answer is no, I don’t think so and I’d be wary about writing him off."
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Rewind to mid-October in 2021 – a few months after Postecoglou had arrived in Glasgow, as Celtic had closed the gap on league leaders Rangers to four points – and the Australian offered a similarly focused and self-concerned answer about results elsewhere.
“I thought the Premiership was over mate, so I’m not looking at the table any more," he said. "We are just doing our own thing so that result has zero significance. What’s more important to us is that we get more belief into the team.
"It’s one thing to get a victory here but to control the game should give the boys real belief and confidence moving forward.
"We have some big games coming up, starting on Tuesday [against Ferencvaros]. The main thing for us is to keep our heads down and run our own race.
"When you do that and you keep improving then you see where you end up."
