Ange Postecolgou has waxed lyrical about Pape Matar Sarr on the back of the midfielder’s display against Manchester United, admitting that the youngster has impressed him right from the moment he arrived at the club.
Sarr was handed a starting place in the line up ahead of Oliver Skipp, and the 20-year-old produced a display full of energy and technical quality as fans have come to expect from him in his relatively short Spurs career so far.
The 20-year-old was one of Tottenham’s most effective counter-pressers and gave the likes of Mason Mount and Bruno Fernandes no breathing space.
The former Metz man opened the scoring for the home side with his first goal for the club, dispatching a loose ball on the half-volley after Dejan Kulusevski’s defelected cross fell kindly to him in front of goal in the early moments of the second half.
Postecoglou spoke in glowing terms of the youngster following Spurs’ 2-0 win over Manchester United and praised the Senegalese for his ability both with and without the ball.
(Photo by Chloe Knott – Danehouse/Getty Images)
Ange Postecoglou praises Pape Matar Sarr
When asked about Sarr’s display, the Tottenham head coach told Football.London: “Yeah, brilliant. He’s been great from the moment I arrived. He’s got a great energy about him, but he’s got quality there too.
“He’s one of those midfielders who causes the opposition real problems because whether it’s him running with the ball or without the ball, he runs forward, he runs aggressively and he disrupts the opposition. He’s just got a great temperament for a young guy. So really pleased for him.”
Postecoglou has not been shy of trusting young players like Sarr and Desinty Udogie ahead of more experienced heads such as Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Ben Davies.
When asked about his decision to leave some experienced players on the bench, he responded: “I like to think I know what I’m doing mate. Especially in the early stages, part of what I need to do at the moment is explore the squad and the individuals within it.
“It would be silly of me to stick with some sort of formula in terms of team line-up, because unless I expose some of these guys to this level and trying to play our football I won’t find out about them. So it would have been very easy not to make any changes.
“The guys who dropped out, Emerson and Skippy, didn’t do anything wrong last week. They put in great efforts but I wanted to see Pape and I wanted to see Pedro. There are others I want to see and I will use, without disrupting the cohesion of the team, but this early bit is an opportunity for me to see guys out there and give them a taste of it as well.
“That then feeds into their development. If they’re out there and they can see they can do it then it gives us more personnel to work with moving forward.”
Spurs Web Opinion
Fabio Paratici deserves a lot of credit for identifying Sarr and Destiny Udogie before they really exploded and hit the limelight. It seems like we might potentially have two superstars on our hands.
To get them both for a combined fee of around £30m is quite an unbelievable bit business.
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