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Son Heung-min absent from Ange Postecoglou's Tottenham squad for Man Utd game

Son Heung-min picked up a hamstring issue in Tottenham's Europa League win vs Qarabag
-Credit: (Image: Hiroki Watanabe/Getty Images)


Son Heung-min is not part of Ange Postecoglou's Tottenham squad for Sunday's Premier League game against Manchester United at Old Trafford, football.london understands. Starting on Thursday evening in Spurs' 3-0 win over Qarabag in their Europa League opener, the 32-year-old was only on the pitch for 71 minutes after sustaining a hamstring injury in the match.

Not the news the north London club wanted ahead of such a big game at Old Trafford, Postecoglou revealed in his pre-match press conference at Hotspur Way on Friday afternoon that he didn't think Son was "too bad" and that his captain wanted to train on Saturday. The Australian went on to add that the reason Son went to ground was because he "felt fatigue in his hamstring" but they had to determine whether that was actually an injury or just fatigue.

Amid the question marks over his place in the Tottenham team at Manchester United, football.london understands that Son has not travelled to Manchester for the game. Timo Werner has come into the XI in place of the South Korean as youngster Mikey Moore remains on the bench.

During his time with the media on Friday, Postecoglou did mention that Son's level of playing time, which stands at 549 club minutes and another 180 minutes across two South Korea matches this season, is not sustainable.

"No," admitted the Australian. "I would have wanted to ease his workload this early part of the season, but we lost Richy and we lost Dominic [Solanke], then we lost Wilson [Odobert]. Sometimes, it’s not the amount of injuries, but the kind of injuries you get. So he’s played more than I think than I certainly want him to and the idea of signing Dom and bringing in Wilson and extending Timo [Werner’s] loan was that we could manage his load because he's got international football as well.

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"It's something that I'm mindful of but it's just the circumstances so far, and Sonny always wants to play, that’s his attitude, but we’ve got to be sensible about it. I don’t think it’s got so much to do with his age because I haven’t seen that affect him. It’s more I just don’t think that kind of workload in the modern game is sustainable. We’ve spoken a lot about fixture overload and part of that responsibility lies with us to try to protect our players and certainly with Sonny we’re going to have to be mindful of that."

Postecoglou did go on to explain that Son will be left out of the team from time to time, although that is not a situation he will be discussing with Tottenham's No.7.

"No. I tend not to make decisions by consensus," he said. "I think when you've got a player like Sonny, I’ve had experience of working with guys like that before and they’re always going to want to play. Do I want to dull that competitiveness by having a reasoned discussion with him over a cup of tea and saying ‘Sonny, this is going to be great for you, great for me’?

"No, I’d rather I leave him out and he’s disappointed with me because I think that’s what you want in him, and sometimes it’s doing something for someone’s own good and that’s my decision, my responsibility and I’ve got to take that on board."

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