CRYSTAL Palace boss Dougie Freedman is delighted with the progress of the youngsters in his squad.

The Eagles fielded a number of young players in the Easter Monday 2-0 defeat to Southampton at Selhurst Park and the manager is confident they have good futures ahead of them.

He said: “There are a few young players that deserve to play like Sean Scannell, Kyle De Silva and Matthew Parsons.

“These are very young players who gave it a real go with the crowd fully behind us.

“We were playing Southampton who are very experienced at what they do but today was very encouraging in our development side of things.”

Despite suffering defeat to the Championship leaders, Freedman has not ruled out fielding more youngsters in the remaining games this season and is confident those currently in the side can go from strength to strength.

The manager added: “Kyle De Silva is only 17 years old, is a fantastic lad and a pleasure to work with every day.

“He has been knocking on the door for the last two months, so I felt it was the right occasion to give him a go and he did not let himself down.

“I am learning more and more about our younger players and I thought Stuart O’Keefe was fantastic in the middle of the park.

“In the last 10 minutes there were some tired legs with the youngsters but they kept giving it a go.

“I am proud of what I have seen and the fans got right behind them.

“They stayed with us today and understand that booing young players is not the way we want to go.

“The fans are aware of the club philosophy and that we are heading in the right direction.”

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