‘I was confused’ – Manchester lad Nico O’Reilly on his dizzying rise with Man City and England

Manchester City and England star Nico O’Reilly speaks exclusively to the Manchester Evening News about coming a long way in a short space of time

Nico O’Reilly speaks exclusively to the Manchester Evening News(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)

Nico O’Reilly emerging as the best left-back option for Manchester City and England this year feels like a tall story. But after playing himself into World Cup contention with his international debut, there is literally more to come from the gentle giant from Collyhurst whose stock is rising with every game he plays.

To an extent, O’Reilly was always expected to get to where he is now. Scouted by the four Premier League teams in Manchester and Merseyside as a boy, he picked City over United because he thought the training was better and impressed enough while he was still in primary school to be one of a handful of academy prospects picked out to meet incoming manager Pep Guardiola in 2016.

As the first team set new benchmarks for success in English football, so O’Reilly moved through the academy. In meetings to discuss the best talents aged between 16 and 18, his was one – and there weren’t many – that would always be raised as having the potential to break into Guardiola’s side.

That stands out even more when considering the problems that O’Reilly began to encounter as he shot up in height.

“When you are 15s or below you’re at the best club in the world and as you start progressing you think ‘do I have a chance here?'” he told the Manchester Evening News in an exclusive interview. “With a team like this and a club like this it’s very hard for a young player to come through because they win everything.

“It was exciting though and if you push hard and work hard enough you get your chance. My Under-16 season, I had a lot of growing pains in my knees and my legs.

“I would say 16s was my main growth spurt and I’m still growing a little bit. It’s probably a few more centimetres and I’m 6ft4 now.

“For six months to a year, I struggled quite a bit. My legs and my head weren’t co-operating doing what I wanted to – I looked a bit like Bambi on ice. But then I started to get used to it and grow into my body more it helped me out a lot. I’ve always played the same game, even when I was smaller, but the extra height and strength did help me out.”

Even as things started to click, O’Reilly soon suffered another setback. Despite having been pushed up to play with the Under-23s in his first year with the Under-18s, the club decided that it was for the best that he stayed down for his second year and captained the Under-18s instead.

As Rico Lewis, who he had come through the age groups with in the academy, emerged with a starring role in City’s path to Treble immortality, O’Reilly had to suck up his ambition and listen to what his coaches and – most influentially – his mum were telling him.

“I was a bit confused at the time and I didn’t know why [I was staying with the 18s] but basically there were a lot of good players ahead of me in the other age groups and everyone who spoke to me and told me the reason why,” he added. “It worked out in the end.

“It wasn’t like it was just me – Cole Palmer did it, Oscar Bobb. At that time as a kid you just think you want to go and play higher up and be with your friends.

“It did take a few months to get used to so I had a pretty slow start to that season mentally and then after I managed to get my head around it I started thriving.”

Having come to terms with that and mixed his audacious quality with emerging responsibility to score outrageous goals at Middlesbrough and United to carry the Under-18s to the league title and earn his first appearance in a first team squad, a serious ankle injury wiped out his 2023/24 campaign.

Nico O’Reilly with Ilkay Gundogan and Shea Charles in 2023 as Manchester City celebrated Premier League title wins across the age groups

“The injury was tough. I’d never been through something like that, I had to get surgery. I barely got to see my teammates, watch the games but I couldn’t be involved,” he said.

“Obviously I wanted to be there to support my team and help them out but also I didn’t want to unintentionally bring the mood down. When I started to feel good again and couldn’t play, I just wanted to get in and get game time but it would keep flaring up and irritating me. It was seven or eight months before I could play comfortably again.

“It was a tough year but I did have a lot of support. I knew that season was a bit of a scrap season for me, I wouldn’t say [I thought my chance had gone] but I knew I needed to work hard in the summer and get ready for the next pre-season.”

O’Reilly never stopped believing he would make it and never considered moving elsewhere, even last season when Chelsea made their interest clear and City were hardly emphatic in rejecting that approach. However, Guardiola took everyone by surprise by taking a punt on a player he’d eyed as cover for Rodri in midfield at left-back instead after just one training session there before playing Salford in the FA Cup.

It was nearly three months later in the same competition when City trailed 1-0 at Bournemouth and Guardiola used that same instinct to bring O’Reilly back into the team for the second half. The homegrown hero made two assists to turn the game around and was pushed towards an ecstatic away end by his manager to take the acclaim in what proved to be a turning point for the youngster and his team.

However improbable, City were undeniably better with this untried rookie playing out of position and since his first start against Salford the team have a winning position pushing 90 per cent when he plays that drops to around 50 per cent when he doesn’t.

“It’s definitely learning on the job,” he said. “I had a lot of help from Josko [Gvardiol], Ruben [Dias] and all these leaders in the team but it’s learning on the job because as a midfielder you’re not used to going 1vs1 against the best attackers in the league. It’s tough and it’s a challenge but I’m learning as we go.

“It’s not a usual left-back role, same with the right-back. There’s more freedom with it, I can get forward, go inside. As long as we’re secure at the back, the manager is happy for us to do what we can do.

“It’s good because I can offer an attacking threat, and be an extra body up and around the box. The defending side was the bit I had to get used to because I wasn’t familiar with it and had to learn it. I feel like it’s starting to click together, it’s just down to mentality and being strong and fast and putting tackles in.”

The plan was not for O’Reilly to be used at left-back this season, yet an injury to Rayan Ait-Nouri forced Guardiola’s hand and again City have not looked back to put a poor start behind them and emerge as serious title contenders; three points at Newcastle on Saturday will take them to within one point of early leaders Arsenal.

For somebody whose first Premier League start came in April, everything has fallen into place for O’Reilly astonishingly quickly and he has been integral to City’s excellent run of performances over the last two months. He counts Iliman Ndiaye as the toughest opponent he has faced, but the Everton forward is in the company of Noni Madueke, Bukayo Saka, Mohamed Salah and more that have come away second-best from their duel with the left-back.

Nico O’Reilly gets his England cap from Manchester City teammate John Stones

That defensive improvement has convinced Thomas Tuchel that O’Reilly could be his first choice in the USA, with a debut against Serbia this month followed up with another appearance against Albania. The England boss reassured him during those games but made sure to tell him before he left camp how well he had done.

If it looks like everything comes so easy and naturally for the youngster, he remembers his growing pains and acknowledges the pressure that comes with keeping pace in one of the best squads in world football. His mum Holli, who he happily cites as his biggest influence throughout his career, has raised someone whose intelligence and character impresses City staff as much as his ability.

Already being used as an example for developing talent with the City Football Group, O’Reilly is emerging as a poster boy for Guardiola’s latest side that is showing renewed energy and fight for the Premier League and Champions League.

“I’ve always had the self-belief that I could but it does come with a lot of pressure at a club like this where it’s so demanding and you have to do well. There’s no other option because they want trophies and three points every single week. There is a lot of pressure and you also need to give back to the fans and try and carry on with what’s been going on. It’s hard,” he said.

“There’s still a lot of time between now and the World Cup, a lot of games and I just have to keep my head down and keep putting performances in to give me the chance to go there.

“We’ve gone through a bit of a rebuild through the City team and even the coaching staff so it won’t just click straight away but I definitely think we are good enough and strong enough to compete.

“There are still so many games to go this season and as long as we can keep doing what we’re doing we don’t need to focus on [Arsenal] too much, we just need to make sure we keep getting the three points. We just need to keep going.”

If O’Reilly can continue his meteoric rise, City – and quite possibly England – can raise their own expectations.