Football
Dan Kilpatrick, Tottenham Correspondent 6y

Tottenham's Son Heung-Min confused by ruled-out penalty

LONDON -- Son Heung-Min says he was baffled by the decision to rule out his penalty in Tottenham's 6-1 win over Rochdale but admitted he will have to change his technique.

Son was at the centre of the controversy as Wednesday's FA Cup fifth-round replay at Wembley Stadium descended into farce amid a number of controversial decisions by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR).

The South Korean created Erik Lamela's seventh-minute goal, belatedly disallowed by the VAR, before opening the scoring himself. He thought he had made it 2-0 from the penalty spot -- only for referee Paul Tierney to rule out another goal using VAR and book Son for ungentlemanly behaviour for a feint in his run-up.

Under the letter of the law, players are allowed to hesitate during the run-up, as Son did, but not immediately before kicking the ball, and the forward scored his last penalty with a similar feint in South Korea's defeat to Morocco last year.

"Honestly, this VAR thing, the communication between the referee and the players is wrong," Son said afterwards. "We don't understand what's going on and why. It's a problem.

"This is the first season of VAR and I think it's getting better. The referee took two goals away from us but I think the decisions were correct from referee...if they see the video it must be the right decision!

"The first goal, when Lamela scored, I didn't know what was going on and I asked him what happened. He just said [Fernando] Llorente pulled the shirt and I thought, 'Ok.' After my penalty, it's difficult to explain because in the international break I scored goals with the same run-up.

"And this time it was a foul. In the past it wasn't a foul. This is a strange thing for me. I scored like this, I tried it again and they said [no]. I didn't stop. This is my move -- I make my tempo slower but I'm still on the move, you know. This, for me, is a bit strange. But the referee says I need to change my style and practice."

Despite no fewer than seven instances referred to the VAR during the first half, leading to six minutes of stoppage time, Spurs refocused to score through Llorente within two minutes of the restart.

"At half-time the gaffer said we need to focus, play our game, we're doing well," Son explained. "First half we had a couple of chances, we scored and normally it's 2-0!

"But after it was 1-1 and then we had a bit of trouble. We deserved [it] in the second half. We played our game and we killed the game. I respect the opponent, they're still a League One team but they fought in the first game and now. I give them a lot of respect."

Llorente went on to score a 12-minute hat trick, more than doubling his tally of Spurs goals and increasing competition for places in the front four, where Son is battling for one spot against Huddersfield on Saturday with Lamela and January signing Lucas Moura, who impressed again.

"I'm very happy for Fernando. He's a very nice guy," Son said. "I think it's his first hat trick for Tottenham and everyone is happy. It's not easy to score a hat trick and for him it's good to get his confidence back and he can score a lot more goals for us hopefully.

"Competition makes us all better and better. I just try to work hard, like today. When I play, I just try to score goals or assist someone -- that's my job. I just try to show my good performance and we'll see what happens in the future."

The win set up an FA Cup quarterfinal at Swansea on March 17 and if Spurs progress they will play the semifinal and final at Wembley, their home stadium for the season.

Son says last season's semifinal defeat to Chelsea, who remain in the competition along with Manchester United, is spurring them on and he said they were aiming to win at Swansea in one go, after needing replays to beat Newport and Rochdale.

"We went to the semifinal last season against Chelsea here and we lost, we were very close to the final and we remember this," Son said. "We're not close to the semifinal or the final but we are in a good way and we can go with confidence to Swansea and we're looking to win.

"We don't go to Swansea thinking, 'Ok we draw and then we replay again.' No-one is thinking like this. We're looking forward to going there, winning and going to the semifinal. We'll see what happens."

^ Back to Top ^