Postecoglou on links to Mathys Tel, Dragusin injury, Van de Ven return and Spurs youngsters Ajayi, Moore and Scarlett | OneFootball

Ange Postecoglou hailed Tottenham’s win over Elfsborg as a “great night for the club” after three academy youngsters scored in the victory.

Substitute Dane Scarlett opened the scoring on 70 minutes, heading in from Dejan Kulusevski’s cross before playing a neat one-two with another youngster in Oyindamola Ajayi, who found the bottom corner.

And Mikey Moore, who started the game against Elfsborg, added a third late on with a fine solo goal to send Spurs straight through to the round of 16.

“It was made in Tottenham tonight,” Postecoglou said.

“Brilliant for the club. I’m sure there are academy coaches who will go to sleep tonight pretty excited.

“We knew we’d have to rely on some young players tonight. We kind of have all the way through to be honest in this campaign and they stood up really well.

“We were going to need some young boys to make an impact and not just the goalscorers, we had another couple of 18-year-olds in there who continue to drive us on.

“It’s a great night for the club and something the whole academy should be proud of.”

Mikey Moore scores his first goal

Moore, 17, has broken into the first-team set-up under Postecoglou this season and the Spurs boss says he can become a big player for the club.

“He started the game really well but he probably had a struggle after that today,” Postecoglou said.

“But he’s 17. That’s just part of his growth.

“Getting a goal I’m sure will give him confidence. He’s been good for us in this tournament, in the early part of the league stage he was a big part of what we were doing and like I said, he’s 17 so if he keeps developing, we’ll kind of nurse him along and protect him along the way, he’s got all the attributes to be an outstanding talent for us.

“He’ll remember tonight which is great, scoring a goal at home in Europe is great for him.

“But he’s still got a lot of work to do and we’ll keep helping him.”

Van de Ven return

In another positive for Postecoglou, he also welcomed back defender Micky Van de Ven for his first appearance since December.

He was taken off at half-time but Postecoglou revealed that was pre-planned, along with the substitutions of Rodrigo Bentancur and Heung-Min Son.

“He’s a quality player,” Postecoglou said about Van de Ven.

“You could see already that he’s got a presence out there.”

Dragusin injury

The only negative for Spurs, however, was yet another injury. Radu Dragusin was forced off in the second half and Postecoglou admits it does not look good.

“Unfortunately Radu has hurt his knee now. I don’t have any further information but it didn’t look good as he was coming off.”

Postecoglou coy on links to Tel

Spurs have been heavily linked with a move for Bayern Munich’s Mathys Tel but Postecoglou, while admitting he hopes for more signings, says he is unaware of the progress of any move for the youngster.

“I can’t tell you anything about Tel mate. I’ve been focused on getting the team ready tonight. There’s other people working in the background.”