Ange: “There's enormous growth that we’re witnessing before our eyes” | OneFootball

Ange Postecoglou felt there were plenty of positives to take forward after our second half display against Manchester City - not least the youthful nature of the team that pinned the champions back in that second half, despite succumbing to a 1-0 defeat.

Ange’s starting XI represented the second youngest we’ve fielded in Premier League history, the average age of 23 years and 243 days toppled only by the team that lined up at Sheffield Wednesday all the way back in September, 1992 - average age, 23 years, 97 days - our 10th match in the competition that launched in 1992/93. That included three teenagers - Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall and Mathys Tel, while Wilson Odobert, back from injury for his first start since September, has only recently turned 20.

We created numerous chances in the second period after City had the better of the first half, but we couldn’t find the equaliser, Erling Haaland’s strike in the 12th minute proving decisive at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Ange was made aware of the age statistic afterwards and told us: “There's definitely positives and I think you know, I keep saying there's enormous growth that we’re witnessing before our eyes, even though we're not getting the rewards for it right now.

“It's great for Wilson to get 60 minutes today, and he'll benefit enormously from it. Archie and Lucas continue to grow every game and look, we’re disappointed, but like I said, in terms of performance, from my perspective anyway, there's stuff in there where we can say, ‘okay, we we're going to take that forward and get to level we want to’.”