Spurs star who’s shades of Mousa Dembele must not play for the club again

This summer feels like Tottenham Hotspur’s most important for a very long time.

While the club endured a torrid Premier League campaign, Ange Postecoglou’s side did the unthinkable on the continent and won the Europa League.

With Champions League football now secured, Daniel Levy and Co have the chance to genuinely back the manager by bringing in a number of top-quality players in the coming months.

However, on top of getting their incomings right, the North Londoners need to nail their outgoings, which means moving on a fan favourite before the end of his time at the club goes down a similar path as Mousa Dembélé’s did.

Dembélé’s Spurs career

In the summer of 2012, Spurs decided to spend around £15m on a midfielder from Fulham by the name of Dembélé, and over the next six and a half years, he’d go on to become one of the very best players in the Premier League.

The Belgian was renowned for his silky technique and utterly ridiculous ability to never lose the ball, regardless of the opposition or the pressure he was facing.

It might sound like hyperbole, but you don’t have to take our word for it, as his former teammates couldn’t praise him enough, with Kyle Walker describing him as “the best player I’ve ever seen play football” and Eric Dier claiming “he’s a monster and he’s got ballerina feet at the same time.”

In all, the midfield “genius,” as former boss Mauricio Pochettino labelled him, made 249 appearances for the club, in which he scored ten goals and provided ten assists, but in his later seasons in North London, he began to be plagued by injury, with reports even claiming he admitted that the physical demands of the league were becoming too dear.

For example, even though he only spent half of the 18/19 campaign at the club before moving to the Chinese Super League, the Antwerpen-born star missed a staggering 22 games through injury, and the season before that, it was nine.

In short, there is a strong argument that Dembélé should have left Tottenham in the summer of 2018, as his final six months at the club didn’t do his status as a great any good, and the same argument could be made for someone in the current squad.

The Spurs star who should leave this summer

So, while there are a number of players who should probably be sold or moved on this summer, the one we are talking about might have a genuine shout for being one of the most popular players in the club’s modern history: Son Heung-min.

Now, before the pitchforks come out, we are not trying to disparage the South Korean superstar, as, without a shadow of a doubt, he’s now secured himself the status of a club legend, if not a legend of the Premier League in general.

Moreover, he’s the first club captain to lift a major honour for the Lilywhites in 17 years and the first to lead the club to a European title in two generations.

Yet, that, in part, is why he should leave the club this summer, as he’d be departing on the highest of highs and having achieved something genuinely remarkable.

Furthermore, while he’s not been terrible this year, there is no denying the fact that he simply isn’t as devastatingly effective as he once was.

Now, that’s not his fault, as, based on research by The Athletic, wide players hit their peak at 26 years old and see a steep decline in their ability to beat defenders at 30 years old.

In other words, with the “incredible” international, as dubbed by Postecoglou, set to turn 33 in a couple of months, he’s just a victim of time.

We can also see this decline in the data, as, according to FBref, he was in the top 25% of attacking midfielders and wingers in the Premier League for successful take-ons in the 19/20 season but has dropped into the bottom 42% this season.

Moreover, like Dembélé before him, injuries seem to be more of a problem, as across the last three seasons, he has missed 34 games, whereas across the three seasons before that, he missed just 14 games.

Ultimately, Son is an icon for Spurs and the Premier League as a whole, but to ensure he doesn’t leave the club on a downer, he should move on this summer, basking in the glory of European success.