Harvey White on 'brilliant' PAOK experience

Young midfielder Harvey White praised his team-mates for the physical and mental strength they showed to battle through in the UEFA Youth League amid a tough, intimidating environment at PAOK.

White delivered the corner from which Brooklyn Lyons-Foster nodded in the only goal of the game in the first half in Thessaloniki on Tuesday before helping the team to fend off the advances of a resurgent Greek side after they went down to 10 men.

The 1-0 play-off round win, which put our name in the hat for Friday’s draw for the last 16, was played out in front of a giant, hostile crowd at the Toumba Stadium. The exact attendance figure was later confirmed as 8,958.

With such ferocious home support spurring our opponents on, 17-year-old Harvey said he and his young comrades relished the experience of taking the lead and seeing out the win in a typically stern European test.

“It is tough to play in this environment but you just have to play through it and take it as a great experience,” he said. “I really enjoyed it, playing in front of probably the biggest crowd that’s ever watched me, so I just tried to take it all on board.

“To be honest, you can hear the home fans but, even though they’re really loud, you don’t really take any notice of them because you just try to concentrate on the game. With every corner they had, every set-piece, we could feel the buzz of all the opposing players around us, they were shouting to each other and the fans made it even louder but we just had to stay concentrated and communicate among ourselves.

“When someone gets sent off and they get a chance, it brings their whole team together with their fans but I thought we started shutting it down towards the end which was good, keeping the ball so they couldn’t get momentum and score an equaliser.

“To train in this stadium beforehand and then to play in front of all those fans, even if they’re supporting the other team, was brilliant.”

On our resilience for the last hour of the game, Harvey added: “I thought our defending was really good, especially when the ball was coming into the box. They probably had two chances from that situation, one which Brandon (Austin) saved and one that hit Tariq (Hinds) and went over, so I thought we defended the box really well.

“Brook was really good. Obviously he scored and then he was heading it clear at the other end but I thought generally it was a really good game. They made it very tough, with 10 or 11 men, but we got an early goal which helped and it’s good to get through and go further in the competition.”