Son Heung-min is lethal – these stats make a mockery of his PFA snub

Many eyebrows were raised when Son Heung-min was not on the shortlist for the PFA Player of the Season award – and the stats certainly do not justify the Tottenham forward’s omission.

At one stage of the 2021-22 Premier League season, Liverpool’s Mohammed Salah looked set to run away with the Golden Boot, the Egyptian hitting 16 goals before heading away to the Africa Cup of Nations in January. However, his goalscoring slowed in the second half of the season, meaning he didn’t score the 30 goals he looked set to.

Instead, he finished on 23, which was still an excellent goalscoring season and enough for the Golden Boot. It wasn’t enough to win it outright, though, as he shared the award with Tottenham’s Son Heung-min. Yet the Liverpool forward has been shortlisted for the PFA Player of the Year award, while Son has been snubbed. Son’s team-mate – and provider of many of the assists for his goals – Harry Kane also made the shortlist, but many were surprised to see the joint top scorer in the league missing out on the six-man list.

When considering the data, it’s very hard to understand why the South Korean has been left out.

First, let’s look at the list of the top ten goalscorers in the Premier League in 2022.

As you can see, Son tops the list with Salah. Behind them is Cristiano Ronaldo, another player who notably made the cut for the PFA award. Indeed, of the top six, Son is the only one not to have been nominated.

And his omission only looks stranger if we add another column, goals minus penalties.

The list is still organised with the overall top scorers, but the colour scale shows the true order, with red signifying the highest number. Son scored five more non-penalty goals than Salah and eight more than Ronaldo.