Manchester City were knocked out of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night.
In the last-16 round of the competition, City took on Tottenham Hotspur in North London to try and land a place in the quarter-finals.
With 25 minutes on the clock, Pep Guardiola’s side were 2-0 down after conceding goals from Timo Werner and Pape Matar Sarr.
Even though Matheus Nunes got one back for the away side just before halftime, they couldn’t find the back of the net throughout the second half.
According to Jamie Redknapp, Guardiola’s decision to leave Erling Haaland on the bench summed up how City may not have been totally desperate to win the match.
After the game, one player who completed the full 90 minutes in the capital for the injury-struck City shared his thoughts on what happened on the night.
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Nico O’Reilly reflects on key incidents in Man City’s defeat to Tottenham Hotspur
Speaking to the official Man City website after the match, Nico O’Reilly shared this assessment of the match and two key incidents he was involved in.
He said: “It’s never nice losing. I thought we played well and for the majority of the game, we were the better team in my opinion for the majority of the game.
“We were getting chance after chance and couldn’t take it but that’s for us to go back to the training pitch and next time hopefully it’ll go in.
On the subject of his attempt at goal that saw Yves Bissouma make a crucial goal-line clearance, O’Reilly said this on the matter.
“It was a good block so fair play to him and then I had a header at the end but I mistimed my jump.”
How did O’Reilly perform against Spurs?
Having started and completed 73 minutes in City’s 2-1 Carabao Cup win over Watford at the Etihad Stadium back in September, O’Reilly ended up being one of the five outfield players to play through the entire game against Spurs.
With 54 touches of the ball in total, the 19-year-old accurately completed 37 of the 40 passes he attempted, as well as making three tackles for his side.
The two chances to score he mentioned after the game were the only two he had throughout the game.
Now that he has opened up about how it took a good block from Bissouma to stop his first one and then blamed himself for the wayward header later on, this shows how mature he is at such a young age by being able to praise an opponent and accept his own mistake.