Heung-Min Son: “Sometimes, you need to suffer”

Like his new Head Coach Antonio Conte, Heung-Min Son was put through the emotional wringer as we came through a must-win game against Vitesse in the UEFA Europa Conference League on Thursday evening.

Sonny scored the first goal of the Conte era and as the dust settled on our 3-2 victory, the South Korea star said he was ‘proud’ of the way the team fought to hold onto that lead under pressure with 10 men for 20 minutes of the second half.

However, Sonny was also frustrated that the game played out like that at all, after his goal, Lucas Moura’s calm finish and an own goal saw us 3-0 up and flying inside the first half-hour. Yet Vitesse pulled two goals back before half-time, Cristian Romero saw red on the hour and we were up against it until the 80th minute, when Danilho Doekhl picked up two yellow cards in four minutes to level it up. Goalkeeper Markus Schubert soon followed him down the tunnel after handling the ball outside his area and we saw out the last 10 minutes to go back into second behind Rennes in Group G.

Sonny has a happy habit of scoring big ‘first’ goals - first Premier League and Champions League goals in the new stadium, first goal of Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo and now Antonio Conte’s reigns - and was pleased this one led to a much-needed victory.

Speaking to Spurs TV, Sonny said: “I’m really frustrated because we should have enjoyed it even more, the way we played in the first 30 minutes - attacking, enjoying playing football, everybody moving but no-one expected it to go that way. It shouldn’t happen and it’s a good lesson for us to be calm, to be humble.

“Sometimes you need to suffer. Cuti (Romero) obviously doesn’t mean to get a red card - who does? But sometimes that happens in football and as a team, we had to suffer, we did and I’m proud we suffered together, including the players off the bench. I’m happy, but it shouldn’t have happened that way. Suffering is good but it shouldn’t have happened.”

Sonny on Spurs TV