Average age of outfield players on Saturday was less than 24
Saturday’s victory at Derby was achieved without a single outfield starting player being aged over 30.
Vakoun Bayo, at 28, was the elder statesman of the 10 players, closely followed by Francisco Sierralta who is 27.
However, it was mostly a group of outfield players in their mid-20s, with three aged 21 or under.
“It dawned on me this morning how youthful the team was on Saturday,” said Tom Cleverley.
“James Abankwah is 21, Kwadwo Baah is 21, Rocco Vata is 19, the rest of the team are in their mid-20s and Bondy is over 30.
“The average age of the 10 outfield starters was 23 point something and that shows we have an excellent and exciting future ahead of us.
“I’m really pleased at how mature the performance was when maybe it wasn’t mirrored in the years of age of the players.”
On the other side of the coin, though, the bench at Pride Park had three players whose combined ages totalled 103 years.
“I thought the age of the team was really good with the likes of Edo and Francisco, in the peak years of their career but fit and experienced,” said the head coach.
“Then we have the nice mix of the fearless young ones and the older heads, like Moussa who came in and steadied the game for us.
“The team felt really well balanced in age and experience at the weekend, but teams at this level – and certainly the successful ones – do have that sweet spot of players in their lates 20s.”
The subs also included Mamadou Doumbia and Amin Nabizada, two teenagers with only a handful of minutes of senior football between them.
“I don’t want to say it was a negative because it’s great for the club to have these young options, and Amin coming in after playing so well in the FA Youth Cup,” Cleverley stressed.
“But losing Giorgi meant we had a couple of very untested players in attacking positions on the bench.
“We’re short at the minute.
“With Bondy having the niggle we’re down to half a goalkeeper with Myles Roberts on the bench, who hasn’t played a game for us.
“Mamadou and Amin, two teenagers, were our attacking options on the bench.
“So the squad felt thin, and we’re all working hard at recruiting to strengthen the squad.”
