Ange on van de Ven: “There’s no ceiling for him”

Ange Postecoglou was full of praise for Micky van de Ven after another stand-out performance from the centre-back in our 3-1 win against Palace in the Premier League on Saturday.

The Dutch international had a full-on battle with Palace forward Jean-Philippe Mateta, winning numerous one-on-one duels - indeed, Opta stats show nine duels won over the 90 minutes as we came from 1-0 down to turn the Premier League encounter around with three goals in 11 minutes.

Micky and central defensive partner Cuti Romero had quite an impact as Cuti headed us into the lead two minutes after Timo Werner’s equaliser. Heung-Min Son raced away to convert a one-on-one chance to complete the comeback two minutes from time.

It was put to Ange in our Review Show that Micky was tested physically by Mateta. “I’m not sure about that,” countered Ange. “I think Mateta was tested physically!

“Micky has been outstanding all year, and he’s growing all the time, we see it in training. The growth in him, his maturity, his physical capacity, there is just no ceiling for that guy. He was important today. We didn’t have to defend deep, they were going to try to play on the counter attack and there was going to be a lot of space, and that suits him because of his speed and ability to track people down. I thought he was really important today.”