OK, bear with me a bit on this one. I typically have standards about what kind of news or rumors generate enough actual info to write a speculative article — I don’t base reports on so-called “ITK” (in the know) and am pretty careful to qualify the crap of of things that are even mostly reliable.
But there’s been a LOT of smoke in the air about 18-year-old South Korean winger Yang Min-Hyuk, one of the exciting young Korean players in the post-Son Heung-Min generation. Current reports are that Yang is in talks to move to “a big Premier League club” and there is a LOT of online chatter that this yet-unnamed club just might be Tottenham Hotspur.
Now, do I KNOW this to be true? No. Not even close. It’s all speculation and ITK reports, and further details are likely going to come out in due course which should hopefully clarify the situation. But consider this — Yang, as stated in the above tweet, is set to be included in the K-League All-Star squad that will face Tottenham in a friendly in Seoul next week, his current club Gangwon FC and there are numerous (and right now, informed but unconfirmed) suggestions that Yang could be unveiled as a future Tottenham player ahead of the match on July 31. Imagine announcing the agreement at halftime of that match, and Yang swapping shirts to play for Spurs in the 2nd half? That’s not going to happen, but it’d be incredible television.
So who is Yang? The short and lazy answer is “the next Son Heung-Min,” but we don’t do that here even if the comparison is easy. But he is a 18-year old dribbly right-sided winger, and while the K-League is the K-League, he had 12 G+A in 1900 minutes as a 17-year old and looks pretty dope. He’s also a Korea U17 international though hasn’t cracked the senior squad yet. Check out his video.
There aren’t advanced stats available for the K-League so you won’t get the sexy green bars if you look him up on FBRef, but if you dig into his surface level stats they’re pretty dang impressive for a kid his age. He’s averaging nearly 0.5 npG+A/90, which is overall 22nd in the K-League, as a 17-year old. Everyone above him on that list is at least four years older.
The plan is, if the murmurs prove to be correct, that Yang would sign with whatever club is signing him and then immediately get loaned back to Gangwon for the upcoming season, which runs February through July. It makes you wonder what he’ll do during the break, but I’m sure those are details which will be worked out. There are also details about work permits and future homegrown club status that will also need to be figured out, but I’m not going to go into those questions right now.
Now, let me reiterate — we do not know that Yang’s new club is Tottenham Hotspur, but we’ll likely find out one way or the other pretty soon. If he does end up coming to Spurs, he’s another young international wunderkind that Spurs will hope can develop into a future star with some additional development time. He’ll be on the Pape Sarr Plan™ — young promising player, loaned back to his original club, then slowly worked into the side. That’s worked pretty well in the past, and continues Tottenham’s recent emphasis on signing exciting young talent before they get snaffled up by bigger clubs or become too expensive to sign.
Yang would likely be transitioning into the club at the same time Sonny would be transitioning out of it. But wouldn’t it be sweet if we lose our superstar Korean king only to welcome in the next generation of Korean attacking talent? I could certainly live with that!