Son Heung-min has shut down any talk of him heading to Saudi Arabia in a £50m move by saying he is only thinking about the Premier League and Tottenham.
The 30-year-old is the subject of reported interest from Al-Ittihad, who have recently signed former Real Madrid captain Karim Benzema on a free transfer and are set to complete a deal for Chelsea midfielder N’Golo Kante. There has been a concerted effort from top Saudi clubs to bring some of Europe’s biggest names to their league this summer.
A £50m-plus move for Son has been mooted although Tottenham were never believed to be open to any such sale of the South Korean star, who turns 31 next month and won the Premier League Golden Boot in the 2021/22 season and has two years left on his current contract.
Now the player himself has shot down the talk after being asked following South Korea’s 1-1 draw with El Salvador in a friendly on Tuesday and said he is just looking to get ready for Ange Postecoglou’s first pre-season at Tottenham.
“I have many things to do in the Premier League. Money doesn’t matter to me now, and the pride of playing football, to play in my favourite league is important. I want to play more for Tottenham in the Premier League. I’ll prepare well when I’m back to Spurs,” he is quoted as saying by Korean football reporter Sungmo Lee.
This week it was revealed that Son had been dealing with a problem that required him to have an operation for a sports hernia after the final match of the season at Leeds United last month, before returning home to South Korea. It has now been a few weeks since the surgery and the Korean FA confirmed that the problem was not serious and Son has been undertaking recovery training sessions.
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However, he remained an unused substitute in Friday’s 1-0 friendly defeat at home to Peru, but he did come on for the final 20 minutes of the draw against El Salvador on Tuesday.
Son spoke about the problem, which he has been struggling with for much of the season, to the Korean media last week.
“I wondered a lot if I should even make this public, but I struggled with pain all season. I played through it for eight to nine months, but couldn’t go on anymore, so I made the decision finally and underwent surgery,” he said during an interview with TV Chosun, as quoted by Korean football writer Steve Han.
“Even for simple actions like passing or turning, every movement starts from your core muscles, but that’s exactly where my pain was. I was only able to do 60 per cent of what could do at 100 per cent [throughout the season].”