Tottenham youngsters put a smile back on Mauricio Pochettino's face in victory over AC Milan

Mauricio Pochettino was in a dark mood at his pre-match press conference but, by the end of this win over AC Milan, Tottenham’s youngsters had their manager smiling.

Pochettino’s squad — already missing nine World Cup semi-finalists — have been hit by injuries in the US and he was forced to make six changes from Saturday’s defeat to Barcelona, handing five teenagers their first starts for the club in Minneapolis.

In total, nine of Pochettino’s XI — which also included back-up goalkeeper Michel Vorm and unwanted striker Fernando Llorente — are unlikely to play a major part in the coming season, which begins at Newcastle in 10 days’ time.

In different circumstances, such a makeshift team could be interpreted as a message to watching chairman Daniel Levy, who is still yet to open his chequebook this summer, but Pochettino is down to the bare bones and he had little choice but to rotate his squad.

Christian Eriksen, Heung-Min Son, Ben Davies and Serge Aurier were among the substitutes after playing in San Diego and Los Angeles, as Pochettino protected the only senior players still standing following injuries to Victor Wanyama, Moussa Sissoko and Erik Lamela last week.

It was undeniably a low-key end to an intensely difficult pre-season tour and the biggest cheer of the night from a crowd of 31,264 came when Eriksen and Son were introduced on the hour.

But Spurs made the best of it and Georges-Kevin N’Koudou’s second goal in a week, following his equaliser against Barca, was enough to beat a more experienced Milan side and leave Pochettino’s team unbeaten over 90 minutes against three European heavyweights, with Spurs beating Roma 4-1 in their opener.

Before the match, Levy toured the US Bank Stadium — the $1.1billion home of NFL side the Minnesota Vikings, from which Spurs took inspiration for their own new stadium — and he could not resist a photo on the pitch.

Far from suggesting Spurs are desperately short of players, their performance will only have strengthened the chairman’s belief — expressed this week by the club’s executive director Donna-Maria Cullen — that they do not need to spend big because of the quality in their academy.

Anthony Georgiou, starting out of position at left-back, was Spurs’s standout player, although the other full-back Kyle Walker-Peters was named man of the match by the sponsors.

George Marsh, Oliver Skipp and Luke Amos were all energetic and tidy in a three-man midfield, and Timothy Eyoma formed an impressive partnership with Davinson Sanchez at centre-back. Pochettino had appeared pessimistic on the eve of the game but, if nothing else, the performance appeared to offer the Argentine a promising glimpse of the future.

“On one side I’m disappointed that some players got injured but of course I’m happy for many young players who stepped up and behaved very well on and off the pitch,” he said.

“They showed they have the potential to one day be consistent in the first team. I’m so happy with them and the whole squad because they behaved so well. I want to congratulate all the academy coaches because they’re working for a long time to produce these players for the first team. Be sure they feel very proud after this tour.”

A toothless Milan performance, particularly from forward Patrick Cutrone, highlighted why they are close to signing Gonzalo Higuain on a season-long loan from Juventus. Milan will reportedly pay an initial £16million for the Argentine, who had been a reported target of new Chelsea coach Antonio Sarri, with the option to make the move permanent for £32m at the end of the season.