Captaincy first for proud Sonny

Five years, 229 appearances and 85 goals down the line - and a first for Heung-Min Son on Saturday.

Our South Korean star wore the captain’s armband for the first time at Spurs, and led from the front in our final pre-season match at Watford, including a dash the length of the field to clear the ball off the line in the last minute!

In terms of the result, it wasn’t to be in this somewhat feisty friendly as goals from Domingos Quina (20 minutes) and Andre Gray’s penalty (39) put Watford in the driving seat at half-time. Sonny replied from the penalty spot late on and we pushed for an equaliser, but it stayed 2-1 at Vicarage Road.

“It’s a big honour to wear the captain’s armband for this club, such a huge club,” said Sonny. “Sadly, there were no fans here and it wasn’t on TV, but still I’m proud and I’m looking forward to doing it again one day.”

Sonny agreed with Jose Mourinho that the competitive nature of the contest was good for the players. “Yes, and we fought until the end,” he added. “We all wanted a positive result before the start of the season next weekend (Everton at home in the Premier League on Sunday 13 September, 4.30pm) and we tried to come back and win the game."

That was summed up by his amazing sprint up the field to stop Watford going 3-1 up in the final seconds. Paulo Gazzaniga came up for a corner as we chased an equaliser, Watford cleared and broke, Marc Navarro aimed at an empty net and then it was Sonny against the ball slowly running towards goal - and Sonny won, just. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for another attack.

“I saw it was an empty goal and I was thinking to sprint back, and luckily, I got back in time,” said Sonny. “2-1 is better than 3-1 and you never know, maybe if we had another minute we could have come back from there, but it wasn’t to be.

“Now we need to rest and to be ready for next week.”