Both Kane & Son just had a mammoth season, their personal best in terms of FPL points. Kane finished the season as the top scorer (23 goals) & top provider (14 assists), scoring 242 points (6.9 pts per game). Son scored 17 goals & assisted a further 10, finishing on 228 pts (6.2 pts per game).
Let’s have a look at some stats of Kane & Son from Fantasy Football Fix.
Something that you would immediately notice is the massive overperformance on xA for Kane & xG for Son. If we dive deep, we would see that 9 of Son’s 17 goals were assisted by Kane. Yes, Son’s unreal finishing was key in Kane & Son significantly outscoring their expected points (208.4 & 189.2 respectively). You might be wondering if this is sustainable. Let’s look at some Understat data for Son’s league seasons from 2014/15 onwards. You would see that Son has always been an elite finisher, scoring 81 league goals from an xG of 57.81 in that period.
Yes, there has been a managerial change, but I think Nuno will incorporate the elements of play that allowed Spurs’ two best players to thrive. We could see more of Kane dropping deeper with Son running in behind, allowing Kane to play those passes through. I wouldn’t be surprised if both of them find their way into our teams at some point as they did in the last season.
Now let’s look at the prospects of both the players if Kane gets the move to City. We could assume that Kane’s assist potential would probably drop without Son’s unreal finishing to rely on & probably reduced creative responsibilities at City. This could be more than compensated for by a potential increase in goal threat though. Aguero’s xG per 90 had been insane in the seasons prior to his last one (fbref). This could be reassuring despite the difference in playstyle between the two strikers.
Kane could very well be a no-brainer pick. The best striker in the league would be joining the best-attacking team in the league (City topped the xG & goalscoring charts in each of the past 4 seasons, even scoring a century of goals in two of them). Meanwhile, I don’t buy into the idea of permanent captaincy circulating in the community. I don’t think Pep would risk him every game with that fragile ankle of his. The recurrent ankle sprains (Transfermarkt) is definitely a matter of concern. We could see sub-ons, sub-offs & 1 pointers as with other City attackers.
How could Kane’s potential transfer affect Son’s prospects?
Let’s have a look at Son’s stats with & without Kane (Fantasy Football Fix)
We can see that Son’s actual output, as well as underlying numbers, significantly dropped except for xG when playing without Kane. In his defense though, the sample size (334 mins) is small & included games against Chelsea (under Tuchel), Liverpool & Brighton. Also, it may be worth noting that all these games were in the second half of the season when Son’s performance relatively dropped (89 points as opposed to 139 points in the first half). Let’s look at some stats comparing the two halves.
It could be seen that there was a massive drop in Son’s goal threat in the second half of the season while there was a significant increase in xA. This could be down to him assuming more of a creative role with Bale in the side. Bale started 9 times in the second half as opposed to a single start in the first half of the season.
Now let’s look at how Son did without Kane in the 2019/20 season.
As you can see, there is a massive increase in goal threat (Surprise! Surprise! He underperformed his xG) when playing without Kane. This could be down to him playing more centrally and closer to the goal and taking a lot more shots in the box as a result. There is also the added bonus of penalties. Though his creative underlying stats mostly remained the same, the assists dropped, understandable with Kane not being there to convert those chances.
Now let’s see how Son’s 2019/20 season stats without Kane compare to his GW1-19 stats this season.
Why, though? It’s simply because that period has been Son’s most productive when playing alongside Kane in the recent seasons (looked at data from 2017/18 onwards). This could be down to Kane dropping even deeper this season with Son running in behind.
Looking at these stats it becomes obvious that Son playing centrally in the absence of Kane clearly has the potential to match or even outperform arguably the best ever version of Son playing alongside Kane that we have seen early this season. A lot of this would depend on the transfer activity though. Do they bring in another striker, forcing Son out wide, reducing his appeal? I think Nuno would find solutions to get the most out of his best player even if they get a new striker.
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