Everton boss Roberto Martinez was delighted with his young players in their Europa League defeat to Krasnodar.

Martinez said he was impressed by how 17-year-olds Kieran Dowell and Ryan Ledson handled the occasion after the pair played 84 and 90 minutes respectively.

Tyias Browning, 20, and 22-year-old Conor McAleny were also handed their first starts for the Club, while Luke Garbutt, 21, again impressed at left-back.

Striker Chris Long and defender Gethin Jones, both 19, each got in on the action late on to make their first run-outs in royal blue, and though he knows the players are at different stages in their development, Martinez has high hopes for the current crop breaking through from the Academy ranks.

He told evertonfc.com: "I'm looking at some of the players and I'm really excited about their futures. Obviously you don't want to lose football games but we could afford not to be focused on the result as much last night because we'd already done the job.

"To see Kieran Dowell and Ryan Ledson, at just 17, being able to learn from that experience and cope with the environment in the manner that they did is a phenomenal sign.

"There are a couple of players who I feel now need to be playing week-in and week-out in the league and we'll look into that and maybe a couple of loan periods will be what they need.

"And then we've got a couple of others, two or three players who I think are ready to participate in the first team and really try to fight for their place."