Tottenham Hotspur manager Antonio Conte has issued a warning to Heung-min Son following the forward's goalless start to the 2022/23 season.
The South Korea forward has been one of the more prolific players in the Premier League in recent seasons, with his name regularly appearing among the English top flight's leading goalscorers.
This season, however, he has endured a tough time of things so far as he is yet to score a goal in seven appearances across all competitions, despite his club's unbeaten start to the 2022/23 campaign.
Largely considered indispensable in the past, the arrivals of Richarlison and Dejan Kulusevski at Spurs this year has provided some serious competition for the 30-year-old.
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In Spurs' latest match against Olympique Marseille, the Brazil star scored a match-winning brace, while Son was substituted off for the fifth time in this campaign.
Ahead of the Lilywhites' UEFA Champions League match against Sporting Lisbon on Tuesday night, Conte was asked about Son's place in the team, and the Italian manager made it clear the forward is not untouchable.
"I think when you try to build something important, when you try to build something with ambition and try to be competitive and fight to win, you have to change old habits, otherwise it means you want to stay in balance and it means you don't want to have ambition," the 53-year-old said, per the Daily Mail.
"For this reason, all the players have to accept the rotation, especially up front, we have four players.
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"For me especially it's very difficult right now to drop one of these four players, but I have to make the best decision for the team, also for the players.
"Sometimes it's better to rest and don't start a game, to come in and play only 20 or 30 minutes and then play the following games.
"For sure, I'm here to try to change the old habit. The old habit was that the players were used to playing in every game. What happened in this type of situation is that you don't have great possibilities to win.
"You try to make the players happy, but big clubs have a big squad, a deep squad. In this moment, we don't have a big squad but we have just started to try to follow this path.
"For this reason, what happens with one of these four players will be normal and you have to know it's good for a coach like me to have these options."
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