Joleon Lescott has hailed the performance of Manchester City youngster Nico O’Reilly in Tuesday’s 2-2 friendly draw with Barcelona in Florida.
O’Reilly scored City’s first goal in an eventual stalemate — that was won 4-1 by Barcelona on penalties — making a run behind the Blaugrana defence to meet a Josko Gvardiol pass, before expertly finishing beyond Inaki Pena.
But that was just one of a number of excellent contributions in the match from the 19-year-old, who misplaced just one of his 30 passes, created one chance and was successful with three of his five attempted dribbles throughout the 65 minutes he was on the pitch.
O’Reilly’s performance was a big improvement on a nervy showing in City’s previous friendly against AC Milan and didn’t go unnoticed by former Premier League-winning defender Lescott.
“Nico’s obviously learned from previous games and I think he approached the game with the mentality of ‘this is Barcelona’ regardless of who he was playing against, I think he realised it was Barcelona at the end of the day,” said Lescott (via Man City’s official website).
He added: “If he goes into every game with that mindset, he’ll come out on top because again he showed a lot more glimpses than in previous games of what he’s capable of.”
O’Reilly ‘can play’ with Man City first team, says Guardiola
O’Reilly will, of course, hope that his form in the United States this summer can help him break into Man City’s senior team in 2024/25.
The teenage midfielder — capped 18 times for England across various youth levels — has been included in previous matchday squads but is yet to debut. However, he boasts a formidable record for Man City’s youth teams, notching 27 goals and 19 assists in 75 appearances across all levels combined.
Guardiola was asked about O’Reilly’s ability to make the jump to senior football after the Barcelona match, bluntly responding (via Manchester City news): “He can play with us.”
The Catalan manager added: “Normally in the academy, all the players are [short] like Rico Lewis and Oscar Bobb. Now, it’s nice to have [a tall youngster like] Nico [O’Reilly].”
“It’s the work of the academy, we are blessed.”