‘terrific collins has come of age’

O’neill praises 19-year-old and other youngsters in City success

MICHAEL O’neill highlighted Nathan Collins’ maturity as Stoke City’s youngsters helped secure a win that laid down a marker in the Championship.

Collins, right, had initially been ruled out of Saturday’s clash with Brentford after a controversial red card for an alleged off-the-ball incident against Barnsley – but Stoke were successful in an appeal and the 19-year-old went on to play a key role in a 3-2 victory.

Fellow centre-half Harry Souttar, aged 22, also starred while 20-year-old Tyrese Campbell scored one and set up two and Jacob Brown, aged 22, and Jordan Thompson, aged 23, also helped secure an eye-catching result against a team that had arrived as promotion favourites. O’neill said: “I thought Nathan was terrific, along with Harry. With James (Chester) in there too they were very good. “For Nathan that’s part of developing. It was a very unfair decision in midweek, but he dealt with that. There is a number of younger players in the team. If you look at the team compared to the one that started this time last year, it’s a big transition. People have to recognise that and I was very pleased with the younger players against Brentford – and the older ones were good as well.”

Stoke’s average age in Nathan Jones’s final match in charge at Millwall, a year ago today, was 28.3 – and had cost more than £40m.

In comparison, the average age against Brentford was 26.9 – and cost about £11m – despite the arrival of influential 33-year-old summer free agents John Obi Mikel and Steven Fletcher.

But O’neill, who has now overseen just one defeat in 15 stretching back to mid-july, is determined to keep his feet on the ground – having also seen two late Brentford goals make life a bit more nervous than ideal.

He said: “It’s three points. We’ll not get carried away.

“We know how good Brentford are but we look at our own squad and the players we have as well.

“We believe they can contribute a lot and I thought that Tyrese and Jacob were excellent.”

O’neill, who now switches his attention to a trip to Swansea tomorrow evening, had restored James Mcclean to the side for his first league start in a month.

Mcclean provided the assist for Campbell’s goal and scored himself.

“That’s the James Mcclean I think we’ve seen in the period since I’ve come in,” said the manager.

“We know what James is capable of doing. He just needs to continue.”