Remarkable Mikey Moore stat shows just how highly his Tottenham team-mates rate him
The number of times Mikey Moore touched the ball on his full Tottenham debut showed not only how much he got involved in the Europa League match at Ferencvaros but also how highly his Spurs team-mates rate the 17-year-old.
Moore was handed his first start by Ange Postecoglou and played the full 90-plus minutes in the European game, earning plaudits for his performance for Spurs in Budapest which should have brought with it an assist after he set up Timo Werner for a big opportunity in the second half.
Playing on the right wing for the first hour and on the left after that, the teenager ran at the Hungarian's defence again and again, sometimes looking to get wide and cross the ball low into the box and sometimes cutting inside. Moore was involved in the build-up to both of Tottenham's goals for Pape Matar Sarr and Brennan Johnson, his driving runs getting the visitors up the pitch and into the penalty area at the Groupama Arena.
One remarkable statistic to sum up just how much Moore's senior team-mates trust him despite him being only 17-years-old is the number of times he touched the ball during the encounter in Hungary. The young winger touched the ball a remarkable 70 times, only six times fewer than Yves Bissouma, the man in the centre of Spurs' midfield hub and Moore's total was by far the most of the rest of the midfielder and attackers.
For context, the ever-running, goalscoring Sarr had 56 touches, Lucas Bergvall 48 and Moore's academy team-mate Will Lankshear's battling, scrapping display ultimately only saw him touch the ball 18 times up top. Moore's fellow winger Timo Werner had less than half of the teenager's touches of the ball with 31.
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"I thought he was outstanding. It's brilliant for a 17-year-old to play 90 plus minutes in a European away tie," Postecoglou told football.london.
"He just handled it superbly, I kind of knew he would and I think it'll help his growth as a footballer once you get through a sort of experience like that. I think he'll grow and evolve and I didn't feel like I needed to take him off. He still looked strong at the end and was still contributing.
"It's just his ability to deal with pressure and keeping the ball in really tight areas and making really good clean decisions for a young guy. It's not easy today, out there you can see the conditions, it always suits defenders because they can fly in with tackles and he got one in the first 30 seconds.
"He kept his feet well and he takes the responsibility of driving inside or taking his man on. He makes good decisions with the ball. He's got so much growth still, but the good thing is he wants to learn, he wants to develop and I couldn't be happier for him but also pretty pleased that he's part of our football club."
Moore's heavy involvement in the match showed not only how comfortable he feels in the first team environment but also how much his Tottenham team-mates want to give him the ball and that only bodes well for the future.
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