Ange Postecoglou hailed Tottenham youngster Mikey Moore after the pre-season friendly victory against Vissel Kobe in Tokyo.
Spurs again looked impressive and made it three wins from as many games this summer, starting their tour of Asia with an entertaining 3-2 win over the Japanese champions.
Moore scored the winner after goals from Pedro Porro and Heung-min Son either side of the break, with Yuya Osako and Jean Patric on the scoresheet for the J-League giants.
The 16-year-old also scored against QPR before the club embarked on their tour and trained with Postecoglou’s side towards the end of last season, making his Premier League debut in May.
A number of young players have impressed during the summer for Spurs thus far. New arrivals Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall are perhaps the headline examples alongside Moore, but Jamie Donley, Will Lanskhear and George Abbott have looked bright too.
Speaking specifically of Moore, Postecoglou told reporters: “Mikey has been fantastic since we brought him in. He’s earned his spot on the roster at the moment — he did at the end of last year. He got a run with the first team because we could see in training that he was handling himself really well and that’s followed through into pre-season training.
“He’s been good in all the games — he probably should have had three tonight, to be fair — but he did take his goal well by being in the right areas.
“All we can do is keep allowing him to develop. We have to remember that last year he had some injuries and he is only 16, but — yeah — super exciting. I think the future with a lot of our young guys looks pretty promising, but it’s our responsibility to make sure they realise their potential and continue to work hard at their game.”
Postecoglou was also asked about potential plans to sign a new striker but was rather coy in his response.
“We had a strategy of the kind of players and what we need to bring in,” he added.
“We played Deki [Kulusevski] through the middle like we did last year, but obviously with Richy [Richarlison] out and Timo [Werner] was unwell today, we were a little bit short in that front third. We've got a clear plan of what we need to do in this transfer period and that's what we're working towards and we know the areas we need to strengthen and the clear focus is on that.”
Tottenham next meet a K-League All Stars XI in Seoul on Wednesday before playing Bayern Munich on Saturday to conclude their tour.
