Tottenham Hotspur’s former recruitment guru explains why club never doubted Heung-min Son

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Former Tottenham Hotspur Head of Elite Potential Identification David Webb has been discussing Heung-min Son’s early struggles at Tottenham Hotspur. 

Webb, who was part of the recruitment structure that brought Son to the club from Bayer Leverkusen in 2015 has been speaking to The Guardian about his work at Spurs. 

Webb, who is now Head of Football Operations at Huddersfield Town, explained what it was that Tottenham first saw in the South Korean which made them pay a reported (Guardian) £22 million for the player. 

It was those qualities that, he says, helped the Tottenham hierarchy realise that Son would come good after a difficult first season in North London. 

“Some players hit the ground running, some take time to adapt but we were never in any doubt that he would flourish. He was a fantastic player. He was different to anything we had and we did our homework on profiling him. He was a very family-orientated person, a very confident character and a really nice lad.

“He was multi-functional. That was important. If we needed to play him as a false nine, to play him wide, in the half spaces, one of his main attributes was that he could run beyond. We had some good ball players and we had never really had those players who could stretch.”

Son scored just seven goals in his first year at Spurs and at the end of the season, it was highly widely reported that he could be on his way out. 

As reported by The Telegraph in May 2016, former Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino was ready to flog Son after his unimpressive first year, with teams in Germany keen on bringing him back. 

But Son remained and has become one of the club’s most influential players. It seems one person who will not be surprised by that fact, is Webb. It just goes to show that when scouting a player, it is not just about what they can do on the pitch, but how they might react if they meet adversity, that is important.