Ange Postecoglou admired his 4 adolescent beginners after they aided Tottenham to a hard-fought 2-1 success at Ferencvaros in the Europa League, yet is not prepared to call them ‘Ange’ s Angels’ yet.
Four gamers aged 19 or under were called in the Spurs line-up in Budapest with complete launchings handed to academy grads Mikey Moore and Will Lankshear, yet the duo swept aside their lack of experience to incorporate to establish Pape Sarr’s 23rd-minute opener.
Sarr racked up amidst a vicious white-hot ambience at Groupama Arena and while Ferencvaros pressed the site visitors, Tottenham alternative Brennan Johnson finished up the factors with a clever coating in the 86th-minute to rack up for a 5th successive video game.
Barnabas Varga decreased the shortage at the beginning of stoppage-time, yet Postecoglou’s side, which had an ordinary age of 23 after adolescent set Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall additionally began, hung on.
Asked if his young people can be called Ange’s Angels of the Busby Babes and Fergie’s Fledglings, Postecoglou giggled: “Nah, nah, nah, nah, you’ve got to do better than that. No, no chance.
“The first thing is that they’re part of our first team squad, not because I want some young players, it’s because they’ve earned that spot.
“Then it’s about how to help them develop and the moments we need to put them in there, the moments we need to hold off. And we can’t discount the fact that Archie is 18, Lucas is 18.
“I thought Archie was brilliant. We asked him to play in two different positions and it’s incredible how he just adjusts and he’s able to bring his game to wherever he put him.
“Lucas worked hard and Will was unlucky with a couple of moments when we could have got a goal.
“These guys are there because they’ve earned their spot but they’re an important part of our development.
“Whilst we want to be a team that has an impact this year, it’s like I said before, it’s important we’re developing players along the way so that whatever sort of period of potential for success or opportunity for success exists, it’s elongated because of the young players you got through.”
Moore has actually been a name on the lips of Tottenham followers for greater than one year and in May end up being the club’s youngest gamer to show up in the Premier League when presented late on versus Manchester City.
The recently-turned 17-year-old has actually kicked on given that with a solid pre-season adhered to by this very first begin, where his driving run aided produce Sarr’s opener and the Spurs academy grad generated a variety of various other definitive passes, consisting of to establish Timo Werner for a gold second-half opportunity.
“I thought Mikey was outstanding. It’s brilliant for a 17-year-old to play 90-plus minutes in a European away tie,” Postecoglou mirrored.
“He just handled it superbly, I kind of knew he would and I think it’ll help his growth as a footballer once you get through an experience like that.
“I think he’ll grow and evolve and I didn’t feel like I needed to take him off. He still looked strong at the end and was still contributing.
“If you look at the Premier League, how many 17-year-olds are actually contributing and Mikey is already, which shows that he’s got something special but we’ve just got to be really careful about how we develop that.”
While Pedro Porro and Johnson struck the article with the video game at 1-0, the hosts’ did have the sphere in the web after 16 mins with the competition goalless yet Varga was ruled to be offside from Eldar Civic’s cross, which left Ferencvaros manager Pascal Jansen miserable.
“If I look at the game itself, I think we created enough moments and possibilities to score more goals against a very strong side,” Jansen stated.
“Looking at the first goal which was disallowed, I am still guessing why but somehow they found a line which showed it was offside.”
