Tottenham Hotspur striker scores winner against Palace, while Pardew reflects on defeat
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Tottenham Hotspur head coach Mauricio Pochettino paid tribute to Son Heung-min after the striker scored the winner in Sunday’s London derby against Crystal Palace.
"He's a very friendly, very humble person"
Pochettino on Son Heung-min
The 23-year-old, signed from Bayer Leverkusen in the summer, opened his Spurs account in the Barclays Premier League with a smart finish on 68 minutes after being released by Christian Eriksen.
It marked the end of a successful week for the South Korea international, who scored two goals in Thurday night’s UEFA Europa League victory over Qarabag.
"Son is a player that we followed for a long time," said Pochettino. "He can play in lots of different positions in attack. At all clubs, when you sign a player the expectation is big, and I'm happy because he's scored twice on Thursday and again today.
"We wanted to sign him because it's a profile that we like. He shows a lot of energy and presses high with a high tempo, and this is one of the skills he has."
Pochettino also revealed that Son is making a quick impact off the field as well as on it, explaining: "You can see he's a very friendly boy and after one week with the team he brought very good Korean food to the training ground. It shows he's a very friendly, very humble person.
"It was very good. It's between Chinese and Japanese. I had a lot, a big dish."
Son Heung-min celebrates his first Barclays Premier League goal for Spurs
Spurs have now gone five matches unbeaten in the BPL and have won the last two, moving them up to ninth in the table.
"It was a very tough game," Pochettino told Spurs TV. "Palace are a good team and it was difficult for us. We played Qarabag on Thursday and it’s never easy but I thought the energy we showed was amazing and we fully deserved the victory."
Palace manager Alan Pardew, meanwhile, praised the performance of Spurs goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, and called on his side to bounce back from successive BPL defeats which leaves them in seventh place and on the same number of points as Sunday's opponents.
"Going forward I thought we weren't as good as we usually are," Pardew said. "Having said that, the goalkeeper is probably their man of the match with two unbelievable saves to deny us the first goal which would've changed everything.
"I don't want to be in the mid-table, I told the players after the game it's not for me. I'm an experienced manager, I know a good side when I see one and this is a good side. Therefore we need to tighten up in certain areas, be stronger in the mind and we can achieve a great season.
"That, for us, would be a top-10 finish, maybe higher than that."
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