20 year olds are inconsistent by default. He looked very poor yesterday and for some reason very slow (and he’s not slow!).
But that is going to happen at his age. He’ll have a number of games being that poor in the next 12-months, but overall he looks like he’s going to be a very good player.
He’d never played for the first team before January 2025 so not even been in the first team a year yet. He hadn’t played LB since he was about 15 either until January 2025.
He’s learning the position and senior football well and has had a great debut year. He’s quick, strong, reads the game well, is good positionslly and uses his body size well when winning the ball back or keeping the ball.
His crossing is very poor even in games when he plays well and he seems to lose the ball high up the pitch in tight situations a bit too easily… so a bit to work on, but at 20, he’s certainly got years to do that.
Ideally, at 20, he’d only maybe be playing 2x full 90-minutes a month. Unfortunately, Ait-Nouri has been out injured or unfit when on the bench or O’Reilly has been too good to drop, so he’s not been afforded more of a sporadic introduction to first team senior football. With that, he’ll have the inevitable poor games here and there.
Like with his England debut. He was excellent on his debut but that is where it should have been left for a 20 year old’s introduction to international football for that international break. But Tuchel picked him for the very next game a few days later and he was poor. But it’s inevitable that could happen as it so often does with young lads and he should have picked someone else for the second game.
But O’Reilly is looking like a top prospect and I hope he makes the City and England LB spot his own for years when he learns the position fully, gets used to senior football and heads towards his prime.
