Son Heung-Min picks up knock on international duty, held out of Lebanon qualifier

Because we clearly need more drama to come out of this cursed international break, there’s potentially more bad news this morning. South Korea just scored at home through Chang-Hoon Kwon to take a 1-0 lead over Lebanon in their AFC World Cup qualifier. This is a match, however, that does not feature Korean captain and Tottenham Hotspur forward Son Heung-Min, because apparently he picked up a knock in qualifying and was held out of the match for precautionary reasons for an injured calf.

The linked Standard article sounds extremely alarmist, and if this is a more serious injury than what it looks like then it would be pretty dang bad. Spurs are already set to be without its South American contingent of Cuti Romero, Gio Lo Celso, and Davinson Sanchez for Saturday’s match at Crystal Palace, and there’s also a report that Ryan Sessegnon returned from England U23 duty with another injury. Missing Son would be a huge blow.

But it’s not at all clear if that’s the case in this instance. The injury appears to be more of a “I felt something” in training than a serious injury, and the word “precautionary” does seem like it’s accurate. Does that mean that Sonny is going to be fit and ready for Palace in four days? No. Does it mean that we should automatically panic? Also no.

I feel like we should trust the instincts of the Korean physios (not like we have any other choice) and the Tottenham staff to make the correct decision, and be grateful that we’re playing Palace and not Chelsea this weekend.