Son and Davies Kick-Start Their Seasons as Tottenham Thrash Stoke City Again

Prior to his team’s visit to Stoke City on Saturday, Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino talked about not getting stuck in the past. They had beat the Potters 4-0 in April, but in his mind, that result had little bearing on prospects for this latest meeting.

“I think when you play, football is in the present, not the past,” he told his club’s official website. “It’s not about yesterday, it’s today and then tomorrow.”

Despite a repeat of the scoreline in Tottenham’s favour and some similarly impressive football dispatching Stoke again, a couple of his players will be particularly glad their boss is not beholden to previous achievements and results.

Left-back Ben Davies and attacking midfielder Heung-Min Son were both handed their first starts of the season. Two of Pochettino’s more frequently rotated players last time out (not among the stars of that night at the bet365 Stadium), both utilised the opportunities to kick-start the new campaign with solid performances in the 4-0 win—Son especially impressing with two well-taken goals.

Davies’ chance came as a result of his full-back colleague and rival Danny Rose suffering a hamstring injury on international duty. Son benefited from Erik Lamela being rested following his more tiring schedule with Argentina.

After a somewhat staid start to 2016-17, change might have done Spurs some good, regardless. There was good in their three games—a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace sandwiched by draws with Everton and Liverpool—but also room for improvement.

Often alternated with Rose anyway, Davies was just about guaranteed to start against Stoke in the latter’s absence. Son’s appearance was less inevitable, the possibility of one or more of the north Londoners’ new signings getting a run-out instead very much there.

“Today, when you look at our squad, we have the possibility to play in different ways,” Pochettino said of his new recruits, again per the Tottenham website, also later praising the academy hopefuls knocking on the first-team door too. 

“That is important because we have different alternatives across the team in order to compete in all competitions.”

As it was, winger Georges-Kevin Nkoudou was not quite fit enough to be included, while midfielder Moussa Sissoko only made the bench. Vincent Janssen joined him, as Pochettino opted for a 4-2-3-1 formation, rather than one featuring a front two of the Dutchman and Harry Kane.

After missing Spurs’ first two matches while representing South Korea at the Olympic Games, Son returned for the Liverpool game but was an unused substitute. If there were a silver lining to his club not yet firing on all cylinders, it was no one had cemented themselves ahead of him.

So Son got his chance against Stoke here. He will have known full well what his manager was expecting of him.

“In football, you always need to be ready to compete,” Pochettino had also said in his aforementioned call for focus in the present. “That’s always difficult because in the Premier League every game is tough but in our minds, the idea is to go and try to win the game, win the three points, that’s …

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