When Tottenham Hotspur’s South Korean winger Yang Minhyeok was recalled from his moderately productive loan at Portsmouth and sent instead to presumptive Championship winners Coventry City, we all thought it was a great move. Minyheok had shown a lot of promise at what was a pretty poor Pompey side, and he was just starting to come into his own there. Recalling him and sending him to Frank Lampard’s high-flying Coventry side seemed like a fantastic move to bump Yang up a level and hopefully prepare
him better for a future role in a Premier League club. Yang had scored 3 goals in 16 appearances for Portsmouth in the first half of the season and had become a fan favorite.
That’s not at all what happened. Instead, Yang basically got sidelined. He’s played just 29 minutes since his move in January and has been left out of the last 12 Coventry sides. It’s been, Frank-Lampardly, a disaster. But according to The Portsmouth Record, it’s not all Yang’s fault — he’s been a victim of a club that over-purchased in January to have depth for a promotion push, and then had the “fortune” of having all of its preferred players stay healthy.
Here’s a quote from the Coventry Telegraph’s Andy Turner, who described Yang’s disastrous loan as “a victim of unfortunate circumstance.” But he also suggests that perhaps Yang didn’t do himself any favors either.
‘I would say Yang has been a victim of Coventry’s squad. At the time, they needed a bit of spark on the flanks and back up – then all of sudden they didn’t. When he came in, they were lacking strength in depth on the left and the right wings, that was blatantly obvious for everybody to see and had been all season.
‘The Sky Blues had Tatsuhiro Sakamoto on the right and Ephron Mason-Clark on the left, two outstanding players, so they needed to address that – and went out and got three wingers. Yang and Romain Esse came on loan to cater for the right and left wings. Then they spent money on Jahnoah Markelo, more of one for the future, although he has crept into the squad after a period of getting used to the physicality of the training.
‘Unfortunately for Yang, his arrival conceded with everybody getting fit and, all of a sudden, Frank Lampard is having to leave players out of the match-day squad who are fit, which has been a source of frustration for the manager. He thinks it should be like the Champions League and everyone should be on the bench for matches, believing it’s unfair that lads train all week and are not involved with only nine subs.
‘However, Yang has been a victim of that, everybody has got back. For instance, Brandon Thomas-Asante was playing on the left flank for a period of time really successfully when Mason-Clark was out for a few games, now everybody has returned at the wrong time for him.
‘By all accounts, he’s been working hard behind the scenes and just not included. It’s been a really unfortunate loan for him. He’s a victim of unfortunate circumstance.
…
‘He started against Stoke in the FA Cup, he’s exciting going forward but just looks a bit lightweight and gets knocked off the ball too easily. Yang’s been a bit hot and cold, he caught the eye a couple of times, but it’s difficult to judge a player with such a short period of time on the pitch.
‘His one trademark move was cutting inside onto his right foot and having a shot, he did that a couple of times. Perhaps had he imposed himself more, he would have got more minutes, I don’t know. Lampard always says the team picks itself on the training pitch, so maybe that’s the answer.
‘There certainly looks like there’s a player there, I just think it’s one of those moves which has come at the wrong time for him.’
— Andy Turner, Coventry Telegraph
It sucks. It sucks for Minhyeok, it sucks for Tottenham, and it sucks for his future development. Now, it’s easy to say that we should’ve recognized this immediately as having the potential to go hard sideways (and a lot of people will probably say that) but the truth is loans are almost always something of a crap-shoot, and none of us can know from the outside what’s going to happen. That’s just the nature of the loan system — good loans are when your player is able to fully integrate into his loan club and can carve out a place in a team that needs him. Bad loans are, well, the opposite and can happen when the player is a poor fit, or the club is fighting promotion or relegation and is more hesitant to rely on a temporary player over a permanent signing, or if there are questions about a loanee’s abilities to help contribute serious minutes. In this case, Yang was brought in as injury cover as Frank probably expected a bunch of them in the second half of the season. Instead, Coventry has been remarkably healthy, and they’re a good team that had better players ahead of him.
The truth is we just don’t know, but it’s a real bummer for Yang and his development. He’s shown, at least for now, that he probably can be a solid contributor at the Championship level. He’s young enough that he still can develop. If Spurs are relegated, I can see him becoming a significant contributor to Spurs in the second division, but there are still a LOT of questions. Unfortunately, his time at Coventry won’t help answer any of these questions.
