Tottenham superstar Son Heung-min hasn't been playing like a superstar over the last few months, but, as the saying goes, form is temporary but class is permanent. And Son has been one of the classiest players at a world scale over the past decade, winning a Premier League Golden Boot and once carrying Tottenham to the finals of a Champions League.
Yet that still hasn't stopped Son from being passed over by pundits in favor of players not fit enough to lace his boots. Ahead of the Europa League Final between Tottenham and Manchester United on May 21, Man United legendary midfielder Paul Scholes picked a combined XI for the matchup when asked by TNT Sports.
And in it, Scholes picked Alejandro Garnacho over Son as his left winger. While a Manchester United icon picking a Manchester United young sensation isn't the strangest thing in the world, it's wild to see a pundit thinking Garnacho is in any way better than Son right now.
A bad Son Heung-min is still outproducing Alejandro Garnacho
Even at his worst, Son is outproducing Garnacho, who is talented but is one of the most infuriatingly inconsistent players in the Premier League. Son has seven goals and nine assists this season in a bad season, whereas Garnacho has six goals and a laughable two assists. And Son has played in fewer games than Garnacho!
Son wasn't the only Tottenham star to get the short end of the stick either. Scholes also put Diogo Dalot over Pedro Porro at right back when Porro is, by far, the superior player defensively and is also more consistent as a creator. Porro has more assists and more than double the number of key passes per game as Dalot with another substantial advantage in terms of fouls drawn per match.
Porro is better than Dalot in every respect as a right back, and you wouldn't find anyone else in the Premier League who would take Dalot. It's not as wild as a snub as taking the entirely unproven Garnacho over Premier League legend Son Heung-min, but it's also a huge mistake to pick Dalot over Porro when the latter's head-to-head numbers are emphatically better, particularly when it comes to creating chances and end product.
Tottenham's best players continue to be underrated within Premier League circles despite the fact that Spurs are a big and well-covered club. Perhaps that's the curse of being 17th in the Premier League right now, but, well, Manchester United haven't been much better either.