Amos and Skipp on Roma opportunities

Young midfielders Luke Amos and Oliver Skipp were delighted with their opportunities in our 4-1 win over Roma in the United States on Wednesday night.

Mauricio Pochettino had stated prior to the game that our US tour would provide a ‘massive opportunity’ for the younger players in the squad to show their qualities on the field.

Luke, 21, was given the chance to start the game and assisted Fernando Llorente’s first goal before being substituted for another Academy product, George Marsh, on 83 minutes.

“You work hard for this kind of opportunity,” said the former Southend United and Stevenage loanee. “Hopefully there’s more to come. You can’t ever get ahead of yourself and I can always do better but it’s good to get the first game under my belt like this.

“You’ve got to take any opportunity that comes your way. For me, it started weeks ago in training. Since I’ve come back this year, I’ve just tried to work extra hard to get a chance to impress and hopefully I’ve shown a bit of what I can do tonight. Obviously I will try to do more and more every time but it’s a start.”

Fellow grafter Oliver, 17, was also given a chance in his first public outing for the first team as he came off the bench to replace Christian Eriksen shortly after the hour mark in San Diego.

“Obviously I was delighted to play my first game with the first team in front of our supporters and I was just looking to make an impact in the time that I had,” he said. “I came on, tried to be aggressive, tried to make an impact and I felt like I settled in with the lads.

“All the older players have made me feel really welcome, looked after me and made sure I’m doing everything right. It’s been amazing really. They’ve looked after me brilliantly. Any opportunities I get, I have to make sure I take them.”

On the way the game panned out, with braces from Fernando Llorente and Lucas Moura seeing us recover from an early deficit, Oliver added: “It was a great comeback from the boys. They fought, created a lot of opportunities and then took them when the time came. In the second half it was important that we started well because if they had got a goal back, it could have become closer.”

Manager Mauricio felt Wednesday night’s testing game was an ideal platform for the youngsters’ development, telling us afterwards: “We are missing a lot of players because they were involved with the World Cup and that opens the door for the possibility of younger players to have the place to show their quality. It gives them the experience to play against players of a team like Roma. For that type of player, it is an amazing experience and they can only improve after that game.”