Manchester City\u2019s 3-0 victory over Liverpool was defined by a tactical assignment executed with precision. Pep Guardiola singled out Nico O\u2019Reilly after the match, praising a fullback who succeeded in containing Mohamed Salah while habitually occupying the space vacated by Liverpool\u2019s winger. \u201cSalah has been a nightmare for many years with his speed. He\u2019s top.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guardiola revealed the brief was clear. \u201cWe said to Nico that he had to be aggressive,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery time Mo had the ball, he was helped with one or two central defenders\u2014and J\u00e9r\u00e9my [Doku] and Bernardo [Silva] and Phil [Foden]. Nico made a step up because you have to prove how you behave against the best wingers. It is no bad example to do that against Salah.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Reilly is a 20-year-old who began life as a midfielder and, in Guardiola\u2019s view, that background has been crucial. \u201cHe has many, many good attributes, but this aggression and intensity in the duels happened because he was a No. 8 and No. 10 in the academy,\u201d the manager added. \u201cI\u2019m so pleased with the way he is performing.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the day, Salah failed to register a shot on target. That lack of offensive impact was matched by persistent questions about his defensive involvement. Chelsea\u2019s Marc Cucurella had earlier drawn attention to Salah\u2019s limited tracking back after he set up a winning goal against Liverpool last month, and at the Etihad this weekend O\u2019Reilly\u2019s unchecked canters forward created the space for Doku to exploit.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s outstanding performer, even above O\u2019Reilly, showed he could beat two Liverpool players on his own but was often presented with one-on-one opportunities because O\u2019Reilly\u2019s forward underlaps drew attention away from him. On tactics and responsibility, Wayne Rooney summed up a wider expectation: \u201cSalah is in the team to score goals and create goals. He\u2019s been one of the best players in the Premier League over the last six or seven years. But in big games, you have to double up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guardiola hailed Nico O’Reilly as City subdued Salah in a 3-0 win; tactical aggression shone. Today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,172],"tags":[1162,299,1240],"class_list":["post-4394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-arne-slot","tag-nico-oreilly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}