Fulham youngster Ollie O’Neill has been raving about youngster Jonathan Esenga after the under-21s defeated Feyenoord last night.
O’Neill was speaking to the club’s official website after a 3-1 win in the Premier League International Cup.
It was another impressive outing from Hayden Mullins’s side at Motspur Park yesterday.
Fulham have one of the strongest academies in England right now and several players are pushing to be included at first-team level, especially ahead of tonight’s Carabao Cup tie.
Cypriot under-21 international midfielder Giorgos Okkas opened the scoring in the opening minutes before Ollie O’Neill doubled the host’s advantage from the penalty spot.
Young forward Aaron Loupalo-Bi scored off the bench before the wonderfully named Delano van der Heijden scored a late consolation goal for the Dutch team.
Mullins was forced to call up several players from the under-18s for the fixture who all did very well.
However, O’Neill was quick to highlight the impact Jonathan Esenga has had on Fulham’s under-21 side this season.
He’s already played six times at that level in Premier League 2 despite being just 16 years old.
Fulham have a history of bringing through young left-backs and Esenga can take inspiration from Ryan Sessegnon’s rise through the ranks in his bid to play for the first team.
O’Neill hails Fulham youngster Esenga
O’Neill was asked about the young players brought in by Hayden Mullins to face Feyenoord last night and said: “Yeah, they’re such good players.
“There’s obviously some of them playing the whole season, like John Esenga has been unbelievable for quite a while now to be honest.
“It’s not anything out of the ordinary for him. But then it’s really nice, like I enjoy it because as you start to get a little bit older, it’s actually quite nice when you have younger players come in with real energy and something to prove at this level.
“Really good players, like all of them coming from the [under] 18s, it’s a nice bit of a change up at times.”
Esenga like O’Neill is one of several Fulham academy players who have already been recognised at international level.
O’Neill is already an Irish under-21 international, while Esenga is working his way through the Young Lions set-up with England.
Already an England under-17 player, he will have his eye on this month’s World Cup at that level.
The likes of Phil Foden, Morgan Gibbs-White and Fulham’s own Steven Sessegnon announced themselves at that level six years ago by winning the tournament.
Esenga will be hoping to follow in their footsteps if he earns a call-up in the coming weeks.