Under the microscope: Do Tottenham over-rely on Son and Kane to score goals? | OneFootball

After the sacking of Jose Mourinho last season, Tottenham Hotspur have been on the path of a rebuild. With a new sporting director and a new manager in Nuno, they are trying to forge together a new team with the existing players and the ones brought in this summer.

Spurs started the season on a flying note, sitting on top of the table after the first three matches. Since then the situations have changed, things have gone downhill. They currently find themselves on sixth position in the league with 15 points in nine matches and have lost their last league match to West Ham.

The north London side have conceded a lot of goals this season with 13 so far in the Premier League. Their defensive problems are still very much present, not been eradicated fully. But the struggle up top to find the net has not pulled them out of their misery.

Spurs heavily rely on Heung-Min Son and Harry Kane for scoring goals and with them not being in the best of form, the problems in the final third are wide open.

We look at a few stats.

They have the third lowest xG of 10.25 in the league. Spurs have failed to get into the penalty area comfortably and take up real good positions while trying to score accumulating a very low xG. Even with such a low number, they have under performed it scoring just nine goals.

Even after dominating possession for a healthy amount of time in their matches, Tottenham have the lowest amount of shots from positional attacks with just 41 of them, lesser than Norwich City who are at the bottom of the league. They have clearly not been able to create much chances from the possession they have held. Their over-reliance on Kane and Son upfront to score goals for them every time has lead Spurs certainly into a grave problem. Son has had the most shots in the team with 21 followed by Kane on 18. They have both not had a great conversion ratio this season and others not chipping in with goals consistently on their behalf has been the problem.The above image shows the shot map of Son from this season. Most of his shots have been taken inside the box, where he has scored twice. He has scored twice from distance but his conversion rate has not been great so far. Even with 63% shot accuracy, most of his shots have been less threatening to deal with and saved by the keeper.

The last season golden boot winner and Spurs all time leading goal-scorer in the league, Harry Kane has been in a slump of goal scoring form lately. He has scored just once averaging a goal every 648 minutes in the league. With a shot accuracy of 67%, most of his shots have been saved while others have been blasted wide.

Tottenham hugely depend on the duo for scoring goals and disappointing results coming from them has let them down. Son is still their highest goal scorer this season while Kane is still trying to find his footing right after the Euro 2021 and huge turmoil prevailing due to his transfer request earlier in the summer. Even in such a disastrous form, both of them contributed in more than half of their league goals while also giving one assist each.

This over-reliance on Son and Kane to score has been a huge problem for them, where they are depending more on individual brilliance rather than team involvements. If this does not change soon or either of them get back in scintillating form in front of the net, the issues would keep on growing for Spurs as we dive deeper in the league.