Darren Moore proud with way Alex Matos and reshaped Huddersfield Town stood up to Manchester City

The 19-year-old could not have asked for a more difficult first senior start after joining on loan from Chelsea last week. Not only are Manchester City officially the best team in the world, but their game is based around the midfield, where he was stationed.

Matos had played first-team football for Chelsea before Sunday's FA Cup third-round tie, but only as an 87th-minute League Cup and 89th-minute Premier League substitute in games the Blues were leading 2-0.

You would never have known it by the confidence he showed as a holding midfielder prepared to get forward on the few occasions the chance arose in the 5-0 defeat.

"He was so looking forward to the game it was almost as if I was holding him back because he just really wanted to play, he was so energised for it," said an impressed Moore.

"You saw that in his performance with how he was getting about the pitch and not holding back in any of his challenges.

"He made a challenge in the first half (on Manuel Akanji) and got booked for it so I thought he'd have to be careful but it didn't dampen his spirits at all, really.

"Credit to him for one so young to step into that arena but you've got to remember the environment he's stepped out of, he's probably used to that quality in training so I had no hesitation playing him."

Fellow January signing Bojan Radulovic and teenage academy graduate Tom Iorpenda made debuts from the bench, whilst it was Brodie Spencer's first outing since returning from a loan at Motherwell earlier in the week.

Iorpenda had no time to make an impact but like Matos, the other two gave the impression Huddersfield can come out of January stronger for their Championship relegation battle.

"I think you'll see from our point of view what they'll give us for the second half of the season," commented Moore. "Alex is very competitive, he shows enthusiasm in terms of his play, Bojan his link-up and hold-up play and giving us a focal point to hit, and Brodie patrolled the right-hand side in a difficult game for him to come into.

"Of course we did respect our opponents, currently they're the best team in the world, but we didn't fear them, which was credit to the players."

And although the scoreline was chastening, the performance was not, with Huddersfield defending extremely well to keep the score at 0-0 in the first half-hour and always trying to pose a threat, and not crumbling once Phil Foden broke the deadlock.

It goes without saying, every game from hereon in should be much easier.

"After the game what the boys were talking about was the quality they'd come up against and how switched on they had to be not just from a physical but a mental point of view," said their manager.

"When you step in the arena you can talk about it but when the boys feel it, that's a lesson.

"Sometimes on days like Sunday it's the learning perspective and that's what we've taken from it.

"We had to do that (try to pose a threat) but we knew it was always going to come from deeper, running off the back of them.

"We did venture up the pitch but I just thought the release passes probably could have been better because I thought we had the legs in the wide areas to trouble them.

"But they're such a difficult team because when the ball turns over they smother and press you to regain the ball."