Manchester City have already produced an amazing success story from their academy this season however the rest of their matches go
06:00, 07 May 2025Updated 08:19, 07 May 2025
Nico O’Reilly has added to some giant presences in the Manchester City team
Back-to-back FA Youth Cups would have been a magnificent achievement for the Manchester City academy if they hadn’t been beaten by Aston Villa in Monday’s final. Winning 27 games in a row at Under-18 level is regardless, and there is the possibility of silverware at both Under-18s and Under-21s level yet before the season ends.
The biggest academy success this year has already happened though, and isn’t dependent. Attacking midfielder Nico O’Reilly becoming the answer to Pep Guardiola’s problem from left-back is extraordinary for so many reasons.
Not least that there was a time when O’Reilly’s route to the first team was in serious doubt. Speak to academy staff and he has been talked up as an immense talent for years, yet equally after the first year of his scholarship there were significant question marks over his development.
“He’s had a journey in terms of actual development. It’s not like a linear journey,” Under-21s coach Ben Wilkinson told the Manchester Evening News.
“In his second year of Under-18s two years ago , he stayed with the Under-18s rather than going up because he was a boy who when you looked at him he still hadn’t grown anywhere into his body. He needed a little bit more time because you could see that it was just starting to come and he had the potential to be a real physical specimen but he was a long way from being there and he needed careful management in that year as he grew to try and keep him fit and adapt to his body.”
Thanks to the hard work and patience of the player and the coaching staff who designed the individual programme, O’Reilly learned to adapt to his growing frame and use it to his help the natural skills he had always had. That produced a package that caught Pep Guardiola’s eye enough to take him on the pre-season tour and promote him up to the senior squad last year.
That didn’t automatically mean games though, and his start against Salford in the FA Cup in January was just this third of the season. As late as March, the 20-year-old was being left out of matchday squads because there were 20 players that Guardiola felt he needed more.
Everything changed at the end of that month though, when the manager brought O’Reilly on at left-back with his team 1-0 down to Bournemouth in their FA Cup quarter-final. The substitute came up with two match-winning assists and hasn’t looked back, starting the last seven matches and in the process surpassing John Stones and Nathan Ake for minutes this season.
If it is a reflection of the injuries sustained by two senior defenders, it is still a remarkable rise for a player who is playing out of position. Even more notable, in those seven games the Blues have conceded in just two of them with five clean sheets helping to transform their campaign.
O’Reilly was named as the club’s player of the month for April and will feel hard done to if he does not start the FA Cup final this month given everything he has added to the team.
For all City wanted to win the FA Youth Cup on Monday, seeing O’Reilly star under such pressure is a much bigger prize for Guardiola.
“He’s been around the first team all season but you see him and he’s a giant, a fantastic athlete,” said one academy coach. “Pep doesn’t hang around with people that don’t add to the squad.
“If you’re young and excited to come in, if you don’t produce or behave like a first team player you don’t last long.
“The fact he’s been around the squad all season and it’s taken until the back end of the season to break through shows the patience that the player has and the respect the manager has for him. He’s been fantastic and he just has to keep going doing what he’s doing.
“A lot of young players come into the team around the Premier League and they’re just happy to play. He’s come in and he’s added something, which is a huge compliment to him.”
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