Pep may have found Man City’s own Lewis-Skelly in “unbelievable” gem

It is fair to say that Manchester City are making a concerted effort to bring down the average age of their squad.

In January, they signed Juma Bah (18), Nico González (23), Vitor Reis (19), and Abdukodir Khusanov (21), while Kyle Walker and Kevin De Bruyne, aged 34 and 33 respectively, could both be on their way out of The Etihad.

While hundreds of millions will be spent on new signings, Man City may have unearthed a top-quality youngster from within their own youth system, one that is now being compared to one of the breakout stars of this Premier League season.

Myles Lewis-Skelly’s impact at Arsenal

Few had heard of Myles Lewis-Skelly just six months ago, considering the teenager only made his full Premier League debut against Everton as recently as 14 December.

Now, though, despite still having made fewer than 30 senior appearances for the Gunners, he is their undisputed first-choice left-back.

Adam Bate of Sky Sports outlines how the 18-year-old has enjoyed an astronomical rise, boasting the ‘swagger’ of someone well beyond his years, while Simon Collings of the Evening Standard believes he ‘announced himself on the big stage’ against Real Madrid this week.

Last month, Lewis-Skelly became the youngest debutant to score for England, coolly slotting through Thomas Strakosha’s legs after just 20 minutes against Albania at Wembley.

So, while the Hale End home-grown hero continues to impress at Arsenal, have Manchester City found their answer to him?

Man City’s own Myles Lewis-Skelly

A goal down against Bournemouth, Manchester City’s FA Cup hopes appeared to be slipping away by the South Coast.

In response, Pep Guardiola made a half-time alteration in Dorset, introducing Nico O’Reilly at left-back, pushing Joško Gvardiol into the heart of the Man City defence.

Well, even Guardiola could not have envisaged how well this switch would go because, within seconds, O’Reilly had put the ball on a plate for Erling Braut Håland to equalise, before also setting up Omar Marmoush’s winner.

Afterwards, Guardiola hailed O’Reilly’s impact as “unbelievable”, adding “he’s going to play in semi-final for sure”, while Ben Fisher of the Guardian labeled this tactical tweak as a ‘masterstroke’, with O’Reilly’s ‘seemingly bottomless energy’ changing the game in Man City’s favour.

Similar to Lewis-Skelly, O’Reilly is a midfielder by trade, with Emlyn Begley of BBC Sport documenting that he’s really ‘an attacking midfielder’ but a ‘flexible’ one at that.

Nevertheless, the 20-year-old has found a home at left-back, starting against both Leicester and Manchester United since his second-half cameo at Dean Court.

So, let’s see how he and Arsenal’s teenage star compare.

As the table above outlines, O’Reilly and Lewis-Skelly are very similar stylistically, which isn’t too surprising, even if the Arsenal man having played almost twice the number of minutes across all competitions to date.

Interestingly, O’Reilly registers significantly more touches per 90, while he’s also more of a goal-threat, emphasising the point that, if given the choice, he’d play as an attacking midfielder.

Thus, likely to be deployed at left-back against Crystal Palace on Saturday, O’Reilly is certainly going to be put to the test, considering how dangerous Daniel Muñoz and Ismaïla Sarr are as a duo down the Eagles’ right-hand-side.

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