Ange on Brennan, Destiny and Wilson, ‘he’ll benefit enormously from 60 minutes’ | OneFootball

Ange Postecoglou described Wilson Odobert’s positive display as the ‘catalyst’ for a dominant performance in the second half against Manchester City, albeit without reward as City held on for a narrow 1-0 win in the Premier League at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Wednesday evening.

Wilson was back for his first start since our Carabao Cup tie at Coventry City on 18 September. In-between, he required surgery on a hamstring injury in November, finally returning off the bench against United on 16 February.

Only recent turned 20, Wilson was part of our second-youngest starting XI in Premier League history.

Destiny Udogie and Brennan Johnson also started their second-successive games after injury lay-offs and Ange was asked to assess all three players’ condition when he spoke to our Review Show pitchside, while at the same time explaining why it was important for Heung-Min Son, Dejan Kulusevski and Djed Spence to ‘get a breather’ as well.

He said: “It (that rotation) was important because, again, there is no point me bemoaning the fact we don't have a squad of players and then when we get a squad, we don't use them. So, it was important tonight and I think, especially with the eight-day break now, Brennan will benefit enormously from 90 minutes, it was Wilson's first 60 since the start of the year, he'll benefit enormously from that, and Destiny's getting stronger all the time.

“It’s not just guys coming back from injury, you want to try and get them up to speed so they can help and now we've got three extra players we know are comfortable. It was also important Sonny, Djed and Deki got a bit of a breather as well, because they've put in an enormous shift over the last three months and again, I think they'll benefit from less game time, some recovery, a good week's work of training and to get ready for the Europa League game next week.” We take on AZ Alkmaar in the first leg of our UEFA Europa League Round of 16 tie in Holland next Thursday, 6 March (5.45pm UK).

Later, Ange was asked directly in his post-match press conference about Wilson’s return to the starting XI and his performance.

"I thought he was great," he said. "It was important tonight that Wilson, Destiny and Brennan got some minutes. Again, it’s one thing to get guys back from injury, but we have got to get them up to speed as quick as we possibly can. You could see Wilson hasn’t played for a while, but you could also see the quality he has. I think he grew into the game in the second half. I thought he was a big catalyst at the beginning of the second half when he was running at the opposition. He is an exciting player and if we can manage him through this period and get him to a really decent level of fitness, I’m sure he will help us finish the season strong."