The bold Chelsea wonderkid bid that could undermine Manchester City’s grand planplaceholder image
The bold Chelsea wonderkid bid that could undermine Manchester City’s grand plan | Getty Images
Chelsea have been linked with a rising Man City talent - but would he really leave the Etihad?
It’s one month to the day since BBC Sport reported that Manchester City and breakthrough prospect Nico O’Reilly had reached an agreement over a new contract that would keep the 20-year-old at the Etihad for years to come. That contract has still not been signed.
The reason for the delay is unclear, but it’s starting to generate speculation over O’Reilly’s future at the club, with a fresh report from Caught Offside among a handful which hint at interest from other teams, most notably Chelsea - hardly a club who are shy at seizing the chance to sign a talented youngster.
With the transfer window only recently closed, Manchester City have several months to get the deal signed and ward off their rivals – but will O’Reilly really push to leave his current club, and how likely is it that Chelsea or another team make a bid?
Will Chelsea really make a transfer bid for Nico O’Reilly?
Caught Offside’s story is largely speculative and based in part of a story from Chelsea reporter Simon Phillips, but it would hardly be out of character to consider such a move given their propensity for signing high-end young talent.
The report also lists several other teams who are allegedly interested, including Bayer Leverkusen – who supposedly had bids turned down before O’Reilly verbally agreed to a new contract – as well as Nottingham Forest, Brighton & Hove Albion and Leeds United.
Some of those links seem more plausible than others, but the implication is that quite a few clubs are monitoring O’Reilly’s situation. That in itself implies that plenty of teams believe the delay to his new deal represents a certain hesitation on the part of one party or another.
Whether that would be concern from O’Reilly around his playing time – in City’s first three Premier League matches of the season he has been given just 42 minutes from the bench in total – or a concern from the club regarding his development, is unclear. Manchester City demonstrated with Cole Palmer that they are prepared to sell their brightest young players for the right price, but that experience may have burned them enough to reconsider such offers moving forward.
Still, they sold James McAtee to Nottingham Forest this summer and while they appear to have rebuffed offers for O’Reilly, it would still be entirely in character for City to sell such a player and for Chelsea to bid for them.
The sources for the story remain poor and it may be that the hold-up with O’Reilly’s new deal is purely technical in nature, a debate about wording or money that will be resolved sooner rather than later. It would certainly be strong to suggest that the young Englishman is actively likely to move, to Stamford Bridge or anywhere else, without the reports being backed up elsewhere and without the context of what’s really happening with negotiations that are presumably still taking place.
Why O’Reilly might want out of Manchester City’s rebuild
There is one more piece of crucial context which makes it less likely that Manchester City will be happy to sell a player like O’Reilly than they were with Palmer two years ago – back then, City didn’t view themselves as being in a youth-led rebuild. Now they do.
City realised too late that they had held on to a brilliant but fading squad for slightly too long when results took a turn last autumn. In the two transfer window since, City’s policy has been plain – sell the old, and buy young to set Pep Guardiola up with a brand new squad that can compete for the long term.
It’s that policy that led them to buy Abdukodir Khusanov, Rayan Cherki, James Trafford, Vitor Reis and others besides – and which led them to let club legends like Kevin de Bruyne leave.
In that context, this is a club far less likely to willingly sell a player like O’Reilly, who was given minutes last season that a player of his age probably would not have been earlier in Guardiola’s reign. For several years, Phil Foden was the only academy product to break through into the first team and opportunities for others were scarce. That’s the context under which Palmer was sold – but the landscape has changed. Now, players like Rico Lewis, McAtee and O’Reilly are getting chances in the first team and their transfer are consciously supplanting age with youth.
Still, the arrival of Rayan Aït-Nouri blocks O’Reilly’s path to minutes at left-back, the position in which he first broke through, while a relatively packed midfield, replete with summer signing Tijjani Reijnders, the returning Rodri and others besides, also provides few easy opportunities for game time in his natural position. If O’Reilly was worrying about his chances to establish himself further as a member of the first-team squad, it would not be entirely unwarranted.
If another month drags by without the announcement that O’Reilly has penned his new contract, then it does make sense to start worrying and wondering whether teams like Chelsea are circling. O’Reilly’s versatility, technical prowess and performances in Manchester City’s first team last season suggest that plenty of sides would be prepared to take a chance on him.
And Chelsea do have something of a vacancy at left-back, with little competition being offered to Marc Cucurella, while they are surprising thin in midfield past Moisés Caicedo and Enzo Fernández. Given the type of players they like to sign and the evident needs of their squad, a bid for O’Reilly would be wholly logical, and it may be the case that his head will be turned if he doesn’t start getting more opportunities under Guardiola.
Right now, the likelihood is that the stories circulating are supposition and innuendo rather than anything based on tangible facts, but it’s the kind of supposition and speculation which makes a certain amount of sense. If there really is a problem between O’Reilly and his club, then he could well be the subject of bids from many more teams that just Bayer Leverkusen.
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