Shaun Wright-Phillips was left blown away by a certain Manchester City youngster against Barcelona.
City lost 4-1 to Hansi Flick’s side on penalties after the game ended 2-2 at the end of the 90 minutes.
Pau Victor opened the scoring in the 24th minute for Barcelona.
However, 15 minutes later, Nico O’Reilly equalised for Pep Guardiola’s side.
Pablo Torre put Barcelona into the lead at the stroke of half-time before Jack Grealish levelled the contest up with a goal in the second-half.
However, missed penalties from Kalvin Phillips and Jacob Wright during the shootout meant Amar Fatah’s calm spot-kick was rendered futile as Barcelona converted from the spot four out of four times.
Shaun Wright-Phillips hails Nico O’Reilly after Man City lose to Barcelona
After suffering defeats to Celtic and AC Milan, Manchester City have lost yet another pre-season friendly game and this time to the Spanish side.
But there were positives to take for Guardiola from the clash.
One of them was O’Reilly, who impressed Shaun Wright-Phillips and several other observers in his third successive start for Manchester City during their pre-season tour of the US against Barcelona.
The pundit said on the club’s official full-time show on YouTube: “But I think Nico O’Reilly, especially in the first-half stood out massively. I think he, from the start of pre-season to where he is now, in game performance, I think he was phenomenal today.”
“Everything he did seemed like it was what he wanted to do and it was going in the right direction and it was working for City.”
Nico O’Reilly impressed for Man City against Barcelona
As Shaun Wright-Phillips stated, O’Reilly emerged as one of the standout performers for Manchester City during their latest loss to Barcelona.
The 19-year-old, a natural attacking midfielder by trade has been deployed in a double pivot in the United States.
While defensively, the Englishman has struggled to always come out on top in his duels as well as his positioning, once again, his comfortability in possession in tight spaces, knack for making late runs into the box and technical ability are brilliant facets to his game.
O’Reilly displayed all these talents against Barcelona while also weaving past players due to his quick feet and shifty approach to dribbling.
The England Under-18 international capped off yet another impressive outing with a wonderful goal; ghosting inside the box to get on the end of a sublime through ball from Josko Gvardiol before slotting the ball into the back of the net.
