Cristian Stellini has said that the decision to start Heung-Min Son among the substitutes for this afternoon’s clash with West Ham is in order to fight fatigue.
For today’s Premier League encounter with the Hammers in N17, Sonny will be on the substitutes bench from the off as Cristian seeks to look after the squad amid a busy schedule of fixtures – the decision ends a run of of 11 consecutive starts for the South Korean in all competitions while the last time he came off the bench for us in the competition, he scored a hat-trick (our 6-2 win over Leicester City in September).
Cristian's starting line-up against the Irons sees Ivan Perisic also rested with Ben Davies moving to left wing-back while Clement Lenglet, Cristian Romero, Emerson Royal and Oliver Skipp also return to our first XI in the top flight.
“Me, Antonio and Ryan Mason made this decision because we have a big squad,” Cristian said as he discussed his Sonny decision. “Today, we want to use energy. We played Sonny for many games. Maybe this game could be time also to have Sonny during the match. The reason we have a big squad is because of this.
"We hope, every time a player comes in from the bench, they can change the game.”