Ange on Mikey’s debut, praise for Radu | OneFootball

Ange Postecoglou said Mikey Moore’s debut in our huge Premier League clash against Manchester City on Tuesday night was reward for his hard work in training with the first team this month.

The latest Academy graduate to pull on the Lilywhite shirt, Mikey became our youngest player in the Premier League aged 16 years, nine months and three days old - just inside Dane Scarlett's previous record of 16 years, 10 months and 14 days - when he came on for James Maddison for the final eight minutes of added time.

Mikey now takes number 883 as part of our Legacy Number initiative.

City ran out 2-0 winners on a night where we performed well - more possession, passes and efforts at goal - but the visitors took advantage of the big moments, Erling Haaland on target twice in the second half to take Pep Guardiola’s team back to the top of the table with a game to go.

Speaking to us on the Review Show, Ange said of Mikey’s debut: “I thought it was important. We’ve had him training with us for a while, I’ve been trying to see if we can get him some game time, because we’ve kept him out of the 21s as well, it’s a bit of a reward for him for working hard in the last two, three weeks as part of the first team squad, to give him that experience. He still has a long way to go, he’s only 16, but he’s a good kid and hopefully that encourages him.”

Meanwhile, with a lot of the focus on Micky van de Ven switching to a left-back role on the night, Radu Dragusin making only his third start since his arrival from Genoa in January went somewhat under the radar. Ange felt the Romania international did well up against the threat of Haaland, Foden, Silva and De Bruyne – the highlight somehow deflecting Silva’s goalbound effort wide at 0-0 in the first half.

Aked about Radu, Ange said: “I thought he did really well, look, he’s a good player and will be a good player for us. He hasn’t had a lot of opportunities but, fair to say, if we had him in the first half of the year, our season would have been a bit different.”