Impressing Pep Guardiola and a Rodri solution - inside the rise of Man City's Nico O'Reilly

If Oscar Bobb was the standout player in Manchester City's pre-season, Nico O'Reilly was the breakthrough.

A player who admitted he didn't expect to play under Pep Guardiola ended up scoring against Barcelona and starting against Manchester United in the Community Shield - not a bad summer. The potential is there but can he really be a serious option for the first team this season?

Guardiola has certainly been impressed by the 19-year-old and his qualities are no surprise to anyone in the academy, where he has been since Under-9 level alongside Rico Lewis. O'Reilly made the matchday squad for a Premier League game at Brighton at the end of the 2022/23 season, but injuries did not help his development last year.

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"Last season was a real disappointment for him because he came off the back of finishing the previous season very strongly, the standout player in the successful Under-18s team and then never got going because he was out for so long," explained Under-21s coach Ben Wilkinson. "He played five or six games but it was a really difficult year.

"Staying on the pitch is massive and getting the platform to show how good he is in the first team or for us is really important. He's done very well.

"The manager has shown a lot of trust in that he's started all of the games in slightly different positions. His ceiling is very high. He's got more attributes to his game than people give him credit for.

"He's incredibly bright tactically and if you give him lots of different jobs he's very accomplished in all of them. His technical level is very high and over the last